Who Do You Sing For?

For me, the pivotal moment in the film 'Miracle' (US 1980 Olympic hockey team) comes during a practice so grueling, players are doubling-over with pain and nausea.  "Who do you play for?  coach Herb Brooks shouts repeatedly as players skate from one side of the ice to the other. 'Boston University,' squeaks one player; "University of Minnesota," chokes out another.  "Again!" bellows Brooks; the whistle blows, and the players, stretched far beyond the breaking point, keep grinding it out.  Finally, Mike Eruzione, gasping for air, manages to shout:  "Mike Eruzione, Massachusetts!"  "Who do you play for?"  shouts Brooks. Eruzione:  "I play for the United States of America!"  A small silence.  Oh.

"That'll be all," replies Brooks, and walks off the ice.

Maybe it's the unexpected appearance of Major League Baseball that's got me feeling all sports-metaphor-ish ...

As the days pass, and we wait for news on the lock-out, we need to be writing letters to the ASO Board and WAC.  We need to remind them of their responsibility -- and the reason they were hired -- to preserve one of the country's finest symphony orchestras, an organization dedicated to the highest level of artistic excellence. Go on the Atlanta Symphony Musicians website for information on the lock-out. Learn how injudicious, punitive cost-cutting is the way the ASO Board and WAC intend to give up the fundraising struggle.  

The reason why we sing is a part of our being.  Who we sing for imposes an ofttimes painful discipline of analyzing, rehearsing, and perfecting.

"Again!"  Well, we don't actually have a Herb Brooks yelling at us (some of the old Robert Shaw stories will curl your hair).

But as Andrea points out in her excellent blog, "We have all worked too hard - sung too many notes, counted too many beats, sacrificed too many hours away from our paying jobs, families and children, and cried too many tears, to sit idly by and allow this magnificent organization to implode before our eyes." 

I can't put it any better than that.

Sally Kann, Atlanta.

I sing for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.