Stephen Sondheim Died. So Did a Little Piece of Me.
Amy Lloyd smiled at me as she walked by as if she knew something I didn’t. I was waiting along with 40 or so other students in my high school’s drama wing to see if I had made the list — a place in the coveted Madrigal Singers of Beverly Hills High School (yes, 90210 and all that — but that’s not important here).
As a geeky, awkward high school student who didn’t fit in anywhere, I desperately wanted my name to fit in somewhere on this list. Mr. Pressman made all of us clear the way as he taped the list to the door, and quickly excused himself. We crowded around to find our names. Did we make it? Did we get in? I couldn’t see through the throngs, so I had to wait. Having not made the list as a sophomore last year, I was primed for rejection.
Alan Finkelstein told me my name was on the list.
“Are you sure?” I asked him, still unable to get through to see the list myself. I would have liked to find my name myself if it were true.
And so I waited my turn. When I got close enough, I looked for my name alphabetically, and there I was, listed under the 1981 Madrigals Singers, Melanie Fine.
The elation of achieving what I believed at the time to be the pinnacle of my short 16-year-old life was unlike anything I had ever felt.
And, being in the Madrigals singers did not disappoint. Mr. Pressman demanded perfection from us, and would get really angry at us when we didn’t achieve it. I respected the heck out of him. And I was scared of him.
Christmas was the best time of year for this Jewish girl. We caroled at holiday events throughout Los Angeles. We were interviewed by Pat Sajak, the NBC weatherman, right before he took a job hosting a game show called Wheel of Fortune.
We traveled to Florida to sing at the opening of Disney’s new theme park the Epcot Center.
Being in the Madrigals singers was the first time I felt part of something that mattered.
And it also was the first time I was introduced to the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim.
We sang choral arrangements from Company. We crowded around the piano sight-reading the score to the new musical Sweeney Todd. And, at graduation, we sang “Our Time” from Sondheim’s recent less-than-successful Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along.
Sondheim’s lyrics spoke to my soul, by way of my mind AND heart. Stephen Sondheim understood me, when no one else could. My mom didn’t get it. She never liked Sondheim’s music because he didn’t write a “tune you can hum.” Clearly, she was not the only one.
So I kept my love for Sondheim a secret, harboring and fanning it with the sweet indulgences of sheet music, books, and countless recordings.
I regret that I never met Sondheim in person and told him what his music meant to me, but I feared I wouldn’t come up with the right words. And with Sondheim, it was always about the right words.
I did get to see him from afar when he took the stage at a concert performance of Into the Woods roughly 20 years ago. And, I cherish my autographed Pacific Overtures libretto.
Sondheim’s music became the soundtrack of my life.
I endured my first breakup to “Losing My Mind.” I reclaimed motivation in “Our Time.” And, I resigned myself to my complexities in the deceptively simple “Anyone Can Whistle.”
My Madrigals director Joel Pressman, who opened my eyes and heart to so much music, died too young from a rare form of cancer.
Friday, Stephen Sondheim died.
I imagined the first signs of getting older would be unwelcome body aches and pains.
But really, the first signs of getting older are a broken heart.
Good night, sweet prince of American musical theater. You were the Shakespeare among us. (Heck — never thought that highly of Shakespeare).
“Everyday a little death.”
My name is Melanie Fine. I help entrepreneurs get clients through getting published in top magazines. Take my 7 Day Authority Challenge here.
