Hall 1

Reed Hall

English 101

Dr. Cassle

May 27, 2021

The Infamous All Men's Choir

Music has always been something that I have enjoyed my whole entire life and used as a

way to find peace and comfort during times of high stress. Perfectly enough for me, my High

School offered a choir class titled “All Men’s Choir”. This was a class of fourty high school boys

of all grade levels, and one female teacher. This teacher had more on her plate than any other

teacher in our whole entire schooling system. There was only one men’s choir class every year

and being an easy class to pass, plenty of the kids who took it did not take it seriously. We

always had three main concerts along with some other side performances that we would do

throughout the year. Right before the schools had to start to enforce Covid-19 rules we had

already performed our first concert of the year. To say the least there were plenty of tone death

students singing their hearts out that night. The post concert tradition in any Choir class at New

Albany High School is to spend your first day back, which is more often than not a Friday,

relaxing and rewatching the performance. Normally while watching, there would be many jokes

made about who’s voice you could hear the most or who looked the most nervous up on stage,

but this time it was complete silence. When we watched our performance, it had become very

obvious that we had publicly embarrassed ourselves on that stage to our family and friends.

There were Seniors not singing, Freshman not knowing the words, and the Sophomores and

Juniors dealing with puberty halfway through each song. I vividly remember looking across the

stands while singing and seeing a kid, eyes clenched down as hard as possible, belting out the
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words to the song like Mariah Carey had just asked him to sing the National Anthem with her.

All I wanted to do at that point in time was fall to the ground hysterically laughing, but I

surprisingly kept it together and saved the laughing for after the concert was over.

As we were all sitting in class, on what was supposed to be a relaxing Friday, the

embarrassment rapidly grew until all of the sudden, the video stopped. After a brief moment of

people looking around the room confused, our teacher appeared from the back of the classroom

on a riot. Screaming and yelling and telling us how embarrassing we were and how embarrassed

she was at the fact that in the amount of time we had to practice our songs, we did not learn one

full song. When I tell you it was a riot, I was not being sarcastic whatsoever. Chairs being

shoved just enough for her to not get in trouble, but enough for her to get her anger out. This

teacher had a very strict dark side that very rarely came out, but when it did, you did not want to

feel her wrath. After a good twenty minute earful that felt like an eternity, the bell rang and we

walked out of the class that Friday not knowing what to expect on Monday. Over that weekend

we had found out that schools were being asked to take precautionary measures over the next

couple of months, meaning that our future concerts were going to eventually get canceled. When

we went to class the next Monday it was like the concert had never even happened. All we talked

about that day were the rules and guidelines we would have to follow in the upcoming months in

order to keep everyone safe, and we ultimately had to cancel our concerts. This also meant that

the only opportunity we had to perform that year was the very tragic concert that honestly did not

even deserve to be called a concert. In this instance both covid and music were put in a

tremendous bad light together. With our first concert being as saddening as it was, things only

got worse due to Covid-19. Looking back on this experience makes me feel even more

embarrassed that I have lived to tell a story that seems like it could have never been true. But of
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course after all of the countless things that Covid has ruined in the past year, I can say that this

time it had single-handedly turned one bad thing into something and ultimately made me regret

being a part of the infamous 2020 All Men’s Choir class.