hilltopics Images Features 10A
Wednesday, December 6, 2000 For comments, contact Clay McCuistion at 864-4924 or e-mail features@kansan.com
Choir master
By Lauren Brandenburg writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Simon Carrington's days are full of music.
Carrington, director of choral activities, spends his days trying to improve the performance level of the University of Kansas choirs. He arrives at University on his bike at 7:15 each morning to teach graduate students, conduct choir rehearsals and do music-related paperwork before biking home at 6:30 p.m. He usually spends his evenings attending concerts.
Two awards — one gold and one platinum — for the group's record sales hang on his office wall, but Carrington dismisses their importance.
"We were just a bunch of students with high musical ideals working at the highest of ideals," he said. "It was in the days of LPs. We made about 72 CDs, all of which sold respectably. We were occasionally on the Billboard charts."
Brendan Rice, a second-year medical student who sang in Carington's choirs for four years, said his teacher was always humble about being in The King's Singers.
about being in the King's band.
"I think it would be easy for someone in his position to be self-aggrandizing," Rice said. "I assumed that when I came to KU and heard a professor was in a world-famous band that would be the case. He was really the most down-to-earth professor I had. There was no arrogance at all, which is really surprising, especially in music these days."
The group performed eight times on Johnny Carson's 'Tonight Show', Carrington said. The King's Singers sang "anything that could be done by an unaccompanied group of six male singers," he said, singing
"I think any director—if they're any good—puts their own personal stamp on a choir."
everywhere from a
Simon Carrington KU director of choral activities
baseball stadium in New York to Carnegie Hall to the opening of the Lied Center.
"When it got to the 25th year, I thought I had done it long enough." Carrington said. "You have to be very agile, very alert, like an athlete."
Jackie Davis, then-director of the Lied Center, approached Carrington when the group sang at the center's opening in 1993. She told him the director of choral activities was leaving.
A new career
"I had been to Lawrence a couple of times and always liked the town," Carrington said. "They were looking for an interim director, and I thought that would be good because I didn't know if I would be any good at all."
He enjoyed the post, applied for the permanent job in 1994 and has since received tenure.
Rice said Carrington always brought out the best in his students and strove to make sure the music's quality was high. Carrington's students also like how Carrington is more than a professor, Rice said.
Carrington said he enjoyed trying to get people to believe in themselves so they sung at a higher level than they thought they could.
"He wasn't there just to teach music." Rice said. "He was there as a mentor to all the students, and he was friendly to all students outside the classroom. You could go to his office at any time."
side the classroom. Carrington said it could be frustrating trying to get his students' best performances, though, because they were juggling other classes and jobs.
Carrington directs three choirs — the Chamber Choir, the Oread Consort and the Collegium Musicum — and supervises other directors in the program.
"I enjoy rehearsals and training the choir very much, even
that it's a relatively small part of my work," he said.
work. "I think all musicians enjoy making music and put up with the rest of it," he said. "I wish I had a little more administrative help, but it's just the way things work."
Carrington said he otherwise spends a lot of time doing "grunt work," such as taking risers to churches for performances.
But the hard work has paid off. This spring, the Chamber Choir will be one of six collegiate choirs nationwide to perform at the American Choral Directors Association National Convention in San Antonio, Texas. Carrington said this was about the highest national recognition he could get the University.
Former student Rice said the University was extremely lucky to have Carrington.
A personal stamp
"I want to take them somewhere where they can feel a connection with the past because here in the Midwest the past only goes back to 1865 or something," he said.
Carrington also is excited about taking the Chamber Choir to Brazil this spring.
Outside of his work at the University, Carrington puts on freelance clinics for other choirs, such as the one in Singapore during Thanksgiving break or the one for 700 honors singers in Salt Lake City a month ago.
He also can recruit for the University at these. But on Monday, Carrington comes back to the University to direct.
"If I leave after Chamber Choir, I can race somewhere and get back by Monday in time for choir," he said.
"You have to be out to rehearse a choir very efficiently," he said. "I think any director—if they're any good — puts their own personal stamp on a choir."
Simon Carrington has gold and platinum albums — and a passion for teaching
Now, he is working toward the Sunday performance of Holiday Vespers, in which all the University choirs will perform together and the KU symphony orchestra will play.
"Vespers is all things to all persons," he said. "It is an event welcoming all the holidays — Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas."
ing all the holidays — Hanukkah, Kwanzaa on Christmas. His students are working hard to learn the music, he said, because they only have the two weeks between Thanksgiving break and the performance to learn it.
it is the 76th annual performance, but Carrington tries his best not to repeat anything.
“You can't stand still,” he said. “I wouldn't ever repeat anything. I always look at who's succeeding, who's got a voice that's current. Things change in music all the time.”
Carrington said it was very important not to be isolated in the world of music but to hear what was going on. He has, however, quit listening to rock and pop music, other than to keep up with his son's taste.
"I love listening to choral music," Carrington said. "I used to listen to more rock and pop, and I still keep up with my son's stuff. But I decided that I'm nearly 60 and want to listen to other stuff."
"Frightfully emotional"
Carrington describes himself as "fortunate."
He was born in a thatched house built in 1680 in England. He and his wife still keep a flat in London and a house in France, where they go when they can. And he hopes to buy and restore an old house when he retires.
His mother, a cellist, got him started in music, and his chair directors at Cambridge University also influenced him.
"I hope I'm a similar influence on students here," Carrington said. He thinks of his students as young professionals-in-the-making even though he knows not all of them will continue with music. When he gets e-mail from former students, he thinks he's done something right.
meeting right. He said he could be "frightfully emotional" in his directing.
"Some pieces we get to the end, and I say, 'That was excellent,' and have to wait awhile so we can go on," Carrington said. "That's what the power of music is about."
Simon Carrington, director of choral activities, directs the Chamber Choir. The group is preparing to sing at the annual Holiday Vespers concert Sunday. All of the University choirs and the KU symphony orchestra will perform. Photo by Tara Krauss/KANSAN