Singing for the non-listeners

This evening the community choir with which I sing is performing at a benefit event. The local food bank is the recipient of a “soup bowl” event. Their publicity for it includes: “Buy a unique handcrafted bowl for a minimum donation of $15 get it filled with soup and bread, listen to music while dining with your neighbors!” according to the events listing. All proceeds benefit the Ballard Food Bank.

The choir will be the “listen to music” portion of the fundraiser. We have a few songs that are part of what we have been learning and practicing for our spring concert in May that we will be performing this evening for the fund raiser. I expect the performance to be quite different than what we are used to. Mainly, people will not, in my humble opinion, stop, sit, and listen to the performance. I expect that they will continue purchasing bowls, eating, and talking with their neighbors while we sing as a musical background. There are some tricky parts to the music, and one very funny piece of music, but to appreciate them an audience must be quiet and attentive. And, for us to perform them our best, we need it to be quiet enough so that we can really hear all of the other parts of the music that other choir members are singing. I don’t expect that to happen tonight. Well, we will see what comes.

It’s just N and me at the store today. About half the Saturdays we will have another staff member to help with the customers, orders, and sales, so we are a little short-handed today. I will need to leave early in order to get to the fundraiser in time to sing. This means that N will run the store for an hour or so by herself, and then close the store and finish the end-of-day accounting work, deposit the day’s cash and checks in the bank night deposit, and head home by herself.

In the early years of the store it was just part of our routine that one of us could manage the store, but that was when business was much less. I hope that N will be okay after I leave her this afternoon.