Anyone who knew Krista knew of her love of music. And of her love to perform beautiful music. I always joked with her that I was
her wildcard whenever she wanted to join a choir. Krista had a beautifully mellow first alto voice that was appreciated by those she sang for. But having a first alto range made
it difficult when asking to join a choir because it is a very common range for
women. Whenever she had a director tell
her they had enough first altos she would mention that her husband
sang first tenor. At that point
the director would tell her she could join if she brought her husband. Not that I have an extraordinary voice but it
is uncommon to have a man in the first tenor range, and even more
uncommon for them to want to sing in a choir.
Singing together began for us in high school choir and
continued throughout our life together.
In her later years she loved singing Handel’s “Messiah”. She would often sing the alto solos and duets
during performances of the oratorio. In
the years following her diagnosis she and I would often sing the alto/tenor
duet “O death, where is thy sting”. As
I’ve mentioned before, she would joke that we were “throwing down the gauntlet”
every time we sang it. Now, just
thinking of this song brings bittersweet tears.
We were scheduled to sing the duet at the Artisan Center Theater the
week after Krista passed away. We had
been performing the duet for a few years as part of their annual Christmas
Messiah sing along. As a tribute to
Krista they kept the duet in the program but had it performed as a
Clarinet/Recorder duet. This was a
beautiful tribute to a beautiful woman.
In her younger years Krista also had an interest in writing
music. She wrote “Let Me Lead You to
Eternity” and sang it with her friends for my mission farewell. Early in our marriage she wrote a couple
other songs, “Flood the Earth” and “Look Around Me”, that I wrote the
accompaniment for.
By now you’re probably wondering, what does 50 have to do
with any of this? Well, today is
Krista’s 50th birthday and I have been blessed with another
wonderful wife who wanted to make this a special day for all who knew
Krista. Marlena knows of the love of
music that Krista and I shared and thought we should use her 50th
birthday to share what she loved with others. So, to remember Krista's 50th birthday I’m uploading the songs she wrote
to her blog. Each of the next three
posts will be one of the songs she wrote.
The scoring of the music is very rough but it should be enough for
anyone who wants to try to play through them. Feel free to use them however you like, I know Krista would be pleased.
