The Reverse Sabbatical

August 2023

This month and next month, I have no traveling gigs. There are no presentations. No guest conducting events. No appearances for premieres or workshops with local choirs. While missing out on some great opportunities, I was so certain of my would-be exhaustion in this season that said “no” and scheduled a season for replenishment.

And guess what?

I’m not tired. At all.

If anything, I’m maybe better than I’ve ever been.

Enlivened. Invigorated.

It’s a fascinating mystery.

I was so sure I would be depleted because in March of 2023, I was completely spent. And in the midst of that weariness, I accepted the longest short-term gig I’ve ever had. It would be a great deal more work and responsibility, but it would also mean teaching again—something I missed so much during the pandemic.

For a person who left academia six years ago, it was wild to reenter those halls, but a measured decision—one that had its roots in an experience two years prior.

In 2021, my first traveling gig after the pandemic with an actual-choir-in-the-same-room-as-me was a short residency at the University of Oregon. My eyes brimmed at the beauty of it. I was moved by the music, but also by the hearts of the students and the compassionate culture Drs. Sharon Paul and Melissa Brunkan had created. So, almost a year later, when Dr. Paul invited me to come occupy her office for three months while she was away, I accepted her invitation and drove my belongings (and my cat) across the country to live in an AirBnb in Eugene, Oregon.

Did I fall in love with the trails and the massive evergreens, and the clean air, and the proximity to the Oregon coast?

Of course.

Did I ponder upon returning to Kansas City whether I might turn right back around with a U-haul and return to Oregon?

Absolutely.

It’s a beautiful place to live and breathe and find new parts of oneself.

But in those three months, I think my heart leapt highest at the joy of once more having daily interactions with a choir: being in community with the singers, meeting brilliant new colleagues, the sounds of practice echoing across the courtyard, interacting with administration, and collaborating with such talented graduate students. I leaned fully into all the enrichment, and also…

I didn’t compose.

Ok, I wrote mayyyyybe eight sad measures… but thenI stopped.

I dove headlong into teaching.

I planned rehearsals proudly. I explored the natural beauty of Oregon. I visited the Saturday market. I laughed with new friends. I learned so much from the self-starting graduate students who taught me new repertoire and technology, and gently shepherded me: “Dr. Paul usually has a meeting with us on this day. Would you like to do that also? Or something different?”

This was a secret blessing I hadn’t anticipated: the gift of sliding into the organizational template of a brilliant choral goddess like Sharon Paul. (Incidentally, if you haven’t read her book yet, what are you doing? It is the book. Get it.) I left my time in Eugene with even more respect for Dr. Paul than I had upon arriving, which I didn’t think possible. We emailed occasionally while she was traveling in Europe—usually some version of me asking advice or keeping her apprised of anything that might need her attention upon return, and she would share how her travels were refueling her, and at some point, I realized I was having the same experience.

I, too, was being refueled.

I was working twice as hard as in my freelance-composer-life.

And I was being completely rebooted in the process.

I, too, had needed a sabbatical. A sabbatical that pulled me out of my head and into my body. Out of dreaming and imagining into doing and being with others. Out of pouring out my imagination onto the page and into engaging with students in real time through rehearsing and teaching choral literature. This was the remedy I didn’t know I needed.

The whole experience cradled me like a beautiful dream. And when the dream came to an end on our final concert in mid-June, I drove back across the country three days later, transformed. I had been affirmed and seen. I had grown. I had also healed—not just from the toll of pandemic isolation, but also the griefs (yes, multiple) of losing both parents between 2014-2019. I passed from the threshold of a tired and troubled space into a new, unbroken season— wholly me.

I am back in Kansas City now, still relishing this season of wholeness. I am writing music again, but with deep joy.

There is a new website. There are fresh headshots.

There are even more exciting dreams I can’t yet share.

As magical as it all was, I left my reverse sabbatical with more questions than answers. What enlivened me in Eugene? How do I cultivate that in Kansas City? The answers for now are: proximity to nature; deep, meaty friendships; more frequent engagement with friends and community; and being my fully liberated self on the podium (and off.) I’ve loved cultivating more of this in my daily life since returning to the Midwest.

Though back into the full-time composing life now, academia (in it’s healthiest iteration) is still a blip on my radar. My dear friend Carrie Tennant suggested I might always need to plow one field and let it lie fallow, and move to another field for a bit. Could I find a fun way to alternate stretches of teaching and composing? Maybe. Who knows?

The only thing I know with any certainty is that I know very little.

This lack of knowing is glaringly obvious as I wake up each August morning in Kansas City not completely drained by my time in Oregon and not needing an entire two months off from traveling (as I thought I would) but rather having this beautiful season of creating and nesting and cultivating as much beauty as I can.

So, in that respect, maybe I gave myself exactly what I needed after all?

The plan for now is to suck the marrow from each day that presents itself—to address opportunities and challenges as they arise in the moment. Let’s relish the joys of creating and living and breathing. Tomorrow is composed of nows.

Here’s to staying present, friends.

AR

University of Oregon Chamber Choir performing Salve Regina by Franco Prinsloo and Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” arranged by Adam Podd.