The space is a singer’s dream and a percussionist’s nightmare.  A musician stops making the sound, but the sound lingers, bouncing around the stone and marble.  The echo can completely muddle the sound or it can verify the perfection of a chord.  The last time I had sat in this room was almost exactly a year ago when I had the opportunity to hear a lovely college choir sing from the floor and the balconies.  I remember my eyes welling with tears listening to the stunning sound echoing across the room.  Literally a few days after this experience, our normal world ended and the echoes with it.  

I had taken this experience for granted.  Since being a part of our state music organization, I had probably participated in this event for a dozen years in a row, an opportunity to share what students are doing in the music classroom with state lawmakers.  The whole idea, other than an opportunity for students to play or sing in this amazing space, was to convince people in power that music was important enough for them to support.  After all, at the time we were able to play and sing whenever and wherever we wanted.  The past year took all of that away.

Today a wonderful group of 5^th and 6^th grade band students sat quietly in their chairs with their folding metal stands, music ready to go, waiting for the unicameral to finish their business for the morning.  I watched them as they craned their necks to check out the artwork and architecture, patiently waiting to play, not having a clue what that first cut-off was going to sound like.  Finally they were given the go ahead and following all of the director’s cues, played their first tune.  The director cut off their last note and the students froze.  And the sound echoed on.

I wish you could have seen that little blond flute player in the first row.  Her flute, still held horizontally, fingers still poised on her last note as her eyes widened, listening to that echo.  She wasn’t the only one.  The little smiles, the quick glances at their classmates told the story.  How cool was THAT?!?  Their enthusiasm grew with each piece.  Most had never been to the capital and none of them had ever played there.  For the first time in a year, I had the opportunity to see and do something I had done so many times over the years, but now it was through a new lens.  Yes, the concert series was to advocate for music education during Music in our Schools Month, but now it was so much more than that.  What a difference a year makes.

At the other end of the K-12 educational spectrum, a high school choir joined us.  Safely spaced,  the students wearing masks were the unpleasant reminder of what the last year had been.  On cue, the students removed the masks, put them in pockets and focused on their teacher.  And they took a breath.  

The sound was exquisite.  It was like I had never heard a choir before.  There was such beauty in the sound, the incredible focus of pitch, the matching of vowel sounds, so necessary when singing in a space like this.  But the real test would be in the echo.  And there it was, for several seconds after the sound left their bodies, it continued, perfectly in tune, perfectly in balance.  If that sound, the echo, didn’t advocate for itself, nothing would.  People would have to be robots to not feel something.  There was not a robot in the house.

The young 5^th and 6^th graders who stayed to listen to the second group were entranced, faces held in their hands, eyes locked on those singers, singers no more than seven years older than they.  It was the sound, the echoes.  Nobody moved at the end of each piece until the echo eventually faded and the applause began.  It was as if they didn’t want the sound to stop.  The little girl at the other end of the room from me, probably no more than four watched the conductor, moving her hands and arms with him with such grace.  You can’t tell me music isn’t a part of the human experience.  She had no intellectual investment, the music just spoke to her.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all perfect.  These were high school students after all, and the echo gave away their few mistakes as well, but it didn’t matter.  There was magic in the echo and a reminder that we’re going to survive this craziness and we’re going to step forward into the future, much like that echo.  It may not be exactly the same, but music is going to be there, changing people’s lives, filling their souls, giving everyone a reason to just stop and listen. To the echo.