Choir directors celebrate Thanksgiving a few weeks early in Michigan. (And not because we’ve already all started Christmas music…)
Looking around the ACDA-Michigan Fall Conference for the past two days, I saw family. As I told several people, I would feel perfectly comfortable sharing Thanksgiving with three-quarters of the people at the conference–and the other quarter I just haven’t met yet.
Being a choir director comes with a special professional loneliness; we are usually the only ones in our building at the K-12 level, and even in a large college music department we can have more adversaries than allies among our colleagues.
But alongside the isolation exists a family. The choral colleagues I have come to know over my career count among my most cherished friendships. Our profession is blessed with this bond–I am certain nothing similar exists in most other teaching fields. Like most grown families, we might see each other only a few times a year; but when we do, we pick up where we left off, and we leave the reunion with a sense of renewal.
So happy early Thanksgiving, my dear friends and colleagues. I cherish our times together: know that if you are ever in need of a place to celebrate the real Thanksgiving, our house is open to you.