My A Cappella Life

An Introduction and First Chapter

I am frankly astonished at the impact that a cappella has had on my life. I have absolutely no idea where or who I’d be if I hadn’t joined the Furnace Brook Middle School chorus in eighth grade. Singing with my friends has been the driving force behind every plot point in my life. All the parts of who I am that I’m proud of are elements I discovered as a member of these different groups of singing people. If anyone had asked me to identify the gleaming ribbon of thematic unity running through my life, I would have immediately known the answer. 

It hasn’t felt like my story to tell, in part because the majority of my dearest friends I spend time with are people who also sang in these groups. I’ve had a flurry of reunions lately, both planned and unplanned. It’s been odd and unexpectedly lovely to reconnect as grown turtles with the hatchlings I once joined in our march to the big ocean. Seeing people I haven’t seen in decades and finding our bond still intact has opened up wormholes. I poke my head through and see the shape of my life, defined by the bright, uncynical thread of a cappella. My little spark of musical talent has filled my life with an embarrassing, almost suspicious amount of joy. So I’m going to share my a cappella journey with you, partly because I want you to know how cool I am, but mostly because it’s the best way I know how to write a love letter to the arts in general. We move toward the world we imagine and the arts allow us to imagine a world worth moving toward. 

I know what you’re thinking: “This guy says he can sing? He probably sucks.” First of all, how dare you. I am good enough to turn heads in a karaoke bar, and also good enough to understand and appreciate how freakishly good my friends are who do it professionally. And I have many! It’s kind of like I played on a division three college team, then I played in a fun summer league where some of the guys went to the MLB. You can judge my voice for yourself - open whatever music platform you use and type in any one of these phrases: ‘Hullabahoos Something To Believe In,’ ‘Hullabahoos I Will Wait,’ ‘Hyannis Sound Call Me Maybe’ (I’m the Carly Rae Jepsen of this mashup), and/or ‘Hyannis Sound I’m A Believer.’ Those are my four studio recorded solos.

Come with me, dear reader, on a journey through history and you will hear tell of the time I got over my own fear, lodged an RV under the roof of a service center, smoked a cigar with Jesse Jackson, Jr, shook President Barack Obama’s hand, appeared in the movie Pitch Perfect, guest starred on an episode of The Office, was forcibly removed by law enforcement from a Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake concert at Fenway Park before being sedated and restrained in an ambulance, came up with the zany idea to move to Los Angeles to become a standup comedian, and instead became a globally renowned fashion icon who sang with a band composed of my friends at my wedding that was covered by international tabloids. Lightning strikes of outrageous fortune aside, through singing a cappella I gained a sense of who I am, confidence in what I’m capable of, and a determination to make my life the one I want. 

This particular post will end with the beginning, with soon-to-come posts of subsequent chapters. Before I launch into my full regaling, I first want to say thank you: Thank you to Julie Daigle, Kara Reinshagen, Matt Mooney, Kelly Snow, Colin Egan, and Noah Berg. These people are the Music Directors of the groups I’ve sung with. And I want to thank every single person who has ever sung with me under the direction of the aforementioned. I learned so much and loved it all. 

Chapter One: Marshfield, Massachusetts 

IN THE BEGINNING I loved, as we all do, the melodic sound of the human voice. I don’t know if this is true (and don’t want to fact check in case it isn’t) but one of our family lore stories that when I was an infant, if the car ride home ended before the Celtic Woman tape ended and my mom turned the minivan off, I would start crying. The only way to get me to stop would be to turn the car back on and let the song finish. 

I remember going to a cabaret show with my grandparents. A lady in red got up and sang (maybe a Backstreet Boys song?) and she was beautiful and my heart ached when the song ended and she left the stage. I was completely prepubescent so I didn’t understand what I was feeling but I wanted there to be no one else in the room but the two of us. 

When I watched Disney movies like The Lion King, Hercules, Mulan, etc. - my cheeks would flush during the musical numbers. There was no John Lithgow in my family angrily decreeing “There will be no joyful revelry in this household!” but for whatever reason, I didn’t know what to do with this hot feeling boiling in my gut. I know now it was just the simple urge to stand up and sing along, “Oh I just can’t WAIT to be kiiiiing.” So no one, including me, had any inkling that I was capable of matching pitch. Maybe it’s good that I didn’t find my voice early, because the shame that I even wanted to made me shut up and listen intently. 

At the end of fifth grade, my family moved from Marshfield (South Shore of Massachusetts) to Ipswich (North Shore - Boston being the divider). My dad’s career change that catalyzed the move ended up fizzling out, so we moved back to Marshfield when I was halfway through sixth grade. The default in middle school was for anyone who didn’t play an instrument to join the chorus. But because the chorus had already learned the set list for the winter concert, I made the barely informed decision to join Music Appreciation instead. Music Appreciation was the class where the kids who couldn’t be trusted to behave at a concert sat and flicked paper footballs while Stomp and Fiddler on the Roof played on a television. Again, I have no regrets - I enjoyed my time with Dennis and Jimmy who yes, had behavioral issues, but also had some unexplored artistic talents of their own. 

On the first day of eighth grade my mom was driving me to school. I had the normal first day jitters and a song came on the radio so I started singing along the only way I was comfortable with my voice coming out - with a heavy helping of sneering mockery. My mom, in a fateful act of recognition, realized that buried beneath the derision was a startlingly precise mimicry of the lead singer’s voice. She shook her head. “I’m switching you into chorus.” “Mom, no!” “It’s not up to you.” Mom, because I know you’ll read this: thank you for knowing better, and batting away my resistance. She marched into Furnace Brook Middle School with me, went to the administrative office, and switched me into chorus. 

I liked learning, I liked school. I enjoyed the feeling of new information taking root in my brain. So whenever I was in a class, I did the assignments we were supposed to do. In chorus, the assignment was to look at the sheet music, learn the part, and sing it out. The paper said “Forte,” so I sang my part loudly. And it was fun. My first ever solo was a line in “From a Distance” that we performed during one of our two big concerts. With shaking knees and a deep terror that I would bungle the words, I stepped up to the microphone and sang, “From a distance, the world looks blue and green, and the snow-capped mountains white,” before triumphantly melting back into the group. 

Later in the year, I and a couple of others were encouraged by Ms. Daigle to try out for the Junior District Chorus. I still remember the song: “Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing, fa la la la la la la la la la la laaa la laaaa.” Gavin, Andrew, Justin, and I all made it. As we geared up for high school, Andrew, Gavin, Justin and I received a visit from Kara Reinshagen, the Marshfield High School choral director. She told us that the Marshalairs, the high school honors choir, was losing most of its male members. They didn’t normally take freshmen but they needed some fresh men (That’s my play on words, not hers). We looked at each other, then at her, and said, “We are in.”

At our end of the year eighth grade awards night, I won the “Outstanding Member” award for chorus. Julie Daigle pulled me aside on the last day of school and explained to me why she had given it to me. “For two years I tried and tried to get the boys in this class to sing and they just wouldn’t. It was so frustrating. Then you showed up this year and just started singing. And they joined in. I’m so glad you joined, and I hope you keep singing.” 

Still got it.

For all four years of high school, every other day began with an hour and a half of singing. I gotta say, it’s a great way to start your day. I’m so grateful that I had this thing that was outside the normal rigors of sports and academics. It was the thing above the others that made high school fun for me. We got to go caroling around the halls during the holidays, sing at the town’s tree lighting ceremony, and participate in various district and state festivals throughout the years. We went on a trip to Disney Land in California, we sang the national anthem at a Providence Bruins game once a year followed by trips to Uno’s.

In 2007, the year I made the All State choir, I had to miss a couple of days of school and football practice. When I got back, the most terrifying linebacker on our team (Jake Russell) asked me where I’d been the last couple of days. “Oh - I was at this chorus festival.” “What does that mean?” “Like, I went and stayed at a hotel in Boston and rehearsed for two days and then sang a concert with a bunch of people from around Massachusetts.” In the bad movie, this is where the tough guy calls me a homo and shoves me. But Jake said, “Whoa, that’s awesome.”

At various points throughout my high school career, Ms. Reinshagen implored me to take voice lessons. It was not a compliment, though it was flattering - it was, “You’ve got this thing and you should work on it.” I didn’t want to. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to put effort into music. Listen, I’m extremely aware that this whole series is me blaring my own horn. Please know that I’m simply reporting the facts. I was overloaded with AP courses and varsity football, track, and baseball. Every single thing I was doing in high school was accompanied by this pressure to do the best I could. With music, I was content with good enough - not out of laziness, but because I enjoyed it so much, and the haven it provided me was sacred. I didn’t want to add anything to it that might tarnish that. And now I just find it ‘funny’ in a very smug way that the thing I put conscious effort into keeping at the optimal distance for me to love it completely is the thing that has ended up consistently driving my life forward more than anything else. 

The word ‘amateur’ is adopted from the French language and literally means ‘lover of.’ So fuck yes, I am an amateur. 

I still have my Marshalairs t-shirt from senior year on which we declared ourselves with a wink to be “Varsity Vocal Athletes.” And, I still remember a ton of the music we sang. We learned the entire 86 page score of Mozart’s Te Deum which we performed with the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Karidoyanes. Sixteen years later, the bass part still plays in my head and often out of my mouth whenever the frequently used movements appear in culture. Kyrie, Lacrimosa, and this is Handel, but yes, I know the Hallelujah chorus. Te deum laudamus, te dominum confitemur. Te aeternum patrem omnis terra vene ratur. Pleni sunt celi, sunt celi et terra…I could go on, but I won’t. And I typed that without looking anything up.

And on this foundation, I went to the University of Virginia and built my church.