I've actually been in two flute choirs, in high school and college. I thought about doing them separately until I realized I don't remember too much about my high school flute choir. That's probably a good thing, because it means nothing terribly bad happened.

High school flute choir started when I was a junior. I think we were asked if there was any interest, and there was, so we held auditions. Within the choir there were quartets and trios; I was either first or second in my quartet. See, our goal was to perform at solo and ensemble contest; we'd perform with the choir, and then we'd perform again with our smaller group. That year, the main choir piece was "Spring" by Vivaldi. Some of you may not know it by title, but trust me, you've heard it. And trust me, I've heard it, as EVERY. SINGLE. TIME we performed, we did this piece. I mean, it's a great piece, and the solo part (which, naturally, Kim played) is fabulous, but after a while you get sick of it. There was a point in time after that year where I'd kinda freak out upon hearing that song, and trust me, you hear it a lot--in commercials, in stores, on the radio, what have you. It's everywhere. And, strangely enough, I only hear what was the third flute part (what I'd played), which was the tenor voice, when I hear it now. So odd. But, anyway, we had great success that year; both the choir and my quartet earned first place medals.

Senior year we did the same thing--audition, break into small groups, work toward S&E. I remember this year a little better; we practiced in one girl's basement, and on occasion the town's flute teacher would come by to give us pointers. Mostly, though, we were on our own. I'm impressed that this family would allow 17 girls to overtake their basement every Monday night, but it was for a good cause. Oh, I can't recall our main piece that year, but we did well again. I did choir, my quartet, and a duet that year. My duet partner was a girl named Traci, and I remember us being creeped out just a bit after we got our judge's sheet back. He'd commented on how we were dressed, like we'd planned to dress similarly. Um, really, we didn't; I think we both wore dresses, and they had flowers on them, but they weren't the same color or anything. Weird. But, again, we did well and got firsts for all of them. With flute choir, we'd also perform at local churches and at our band concerts on occasion. It was pretty fun, really.

When I got to college, I know I mentioned to Larry a few times that we should start a flute choir. Larry agreed, but nothing ever happened. Then, during my senior year, Cate was able to start a flute choir. She was like my mom, taking credit for coming up with the idea and what have you; college Kim and I could not convince her that no, we'd brought the idea up years ago. It's not our fault that the previous flute teacher wasn't receptive to it. (I think Kim maybe did flute choir in high school too, and one year we both performed in a holiday flute choir for her former flute teacher in Downers Grove. It was fun. There was a girl with really hairy arms in it.)

So, anyway, flute choir started senior year. There were actually two of them, and while they were sponsored by the college, they were open to the community. One was for junior high kids, basically 7th-9th grades, and the other was for 10th grade and up. Since I am a flute whore, I played with both groups. The older group was more fun and challenging for me, but I liked working with the younger kids, too. Also, since I'm a strong sight-reader, I could fill in where needed. See, we often doubled and tripled parts; we did mainly quartets. However, if all the people on one part were gone during a rehearsal, the song would sound empty. I'd hop over onto that part for the evening. I kind of liked that. I'd get my own copy of that part of the piece; I have nearly complete songs because of that.

I was just a player during my senior and fifth years, but once I stopped being an NCC student, I became Cate's de facto assistant. This was good, as it meant I no longer had to pay to play. I still helped out with both groups, and still jumped around on parts when needed. I enjoyed it. We had some kids that came back for most of the sessions. We also had adults that came by, which was cool. Some of them hadn't really played for a while, but now their kids were older and they wanted something fun to do. That was pretty cool, actually--and they kept up, which impressed me. By this time I'd had plenty of experience at camp, especially with the younger students, so being Cate's "assistant" was a good thing. I was far better with the younger students than she was. It's one thing to work one-on-one with a twelve-year-old; it's another to have a group of them. I was able to handle them; Cate really wasn't. We balanced each other out.

Our main performances were our end-of-semester concerts, but we also performed at retirement homes and flute fairs. The flute fairs were fun, because we could go and see other groups and soloists perform, and there were booths to try fancy-pants flutes, and we could buy music and accouterments. Good times. I fell in love with a Yamaha bass flute there; it was so light compared to the silver one I'd played through choir. Oh, yeah, that was the other fun thing--in flute choir, you get to play big flutes. There's alto flutes (a 4th lower than regular flutes; they're in G) and bass flutes (a full octave lower, and like 4 feet long...the headjoint has to curve around so you can play it). One girl loved playing bass flute so much that she actually got her own. So cool. Also cool? I ran into one of my campers one year, Meghan. Even back then, as a 7th grader (she's in college now), she was a phenomenal player.

The first few years of flute choir were great. However, we struggled with enrollment. Over the summer, Cate ran a flute camp; that one seemed to go fine. But, during the school year, it was tough getting people to come. We'd mainly have some of the same people coming over and over. I think it was in '02 that we had an adult student at the school join. That same year, Cate wanted to promote the choir on Naperville's cable access channel. I was working at the music store then, and it just so happened that my boss's wife was taking classes to produce videos for cable access. Perfect. Cate arranged for her to come and tape us; we even did interviews. This culminated in our having our concert taped that year. However, that concert was a disaster. That adult student I mentioned? God, I don't know what happened, but she must have mentally freaked out. She absolutely destroyed one song because she must have stopped counting. Had she, I don't know, listened or looked at Cate for cues, she could have come back in, but she didn't, and the whole song was off after that. She'd kept playing anyway even though she was totally off from the rest of us, who were struggling to keep it together. Okay, one bad song, we can move past it...but it happened *again*. It was so upsetting. I'm sure Cate was thinking the same thing I was: We can't show this tape to the public. It's an embarrassment to our flute choir. To this day, I've never seen or even heard of the tape again--and remember, I worked with the recorder's husband and saw her frequently. Ah well. It's probably better that way.

We did have one more flute choir session after that, but the following spring, in '03, I got a call from Cate (at work, even) saying she didn't want to do it anymore. Enrollment was so low, and she wasn't getting the flute students for her studio the way she thought she would. Jigga-wha? Now, I'd long known that she was all about the money. Her lessons weren't cheap. Flute choir wasn't exactly cheap. But, again, she knew her stuff, so we were willing to pay. However, I hadn't realized she was blatantly using flute choir to troll for students. I knew she did that with the flute camp, which has continued, but I considered them separate entities. But flute choir? You mean to tell me you're not doing it just for the love of the flute, like I was? Oh, no--it had to be a money-making venture. Oh. I see. And that was pretty much the last time I talked to Cate. It's not that any illusions of her were shattered, but I did kind of lose respect for her at that point. I'm a believer that if you do something for love, not money, it'll show. And who knows? Maybe, had she kept it going (and maybe made it slightly less expensive), she would have gotten more people to come along. Things wax and wane. But what upsets me most? So, the flute camp is still around--and no longer is associated with the college, which is how I figured Cate wasn't teaching there anymore--and the web page for it is still active. I came across it not that long ago...and discovered that horrible adult flute person is part of the faculty. You have to be kidding me. The same person that destroyed our concert is now teaching youngsters? Not good. Not good! Perhaps she's changed, perhaps she's gotten better, but it's hard to overcome your nerves when you perform. Maybe she always has a partner on her parts. (I'm trying to think if she did on that one really bad song...I think maybe she did, but she just didn't listen to the other person playing, which was a HUGE mistake.) But, when I saw that, I lost a little more respect for Cate.

I'm a bit bitter about how it all ended. I mean, it ended up being fine, as a year later I was teaching and I wouldn't have been able to do flute choir anyway. (And when I taught? I had two flute choirs and a percussion ensemble.) Still, I wish it would have ended differently. It would have been totally different had Cate left it at enrollment being down. But no.