by Ali M

Something happens when I learn a piece of music by heart: it lays down tracks there. Chords, phrases, rhythms: they settle into my body. When it’s something I've sung with Polyphony while looking into the face of our beloved Jack, who always let his love of music play out across his face, in his body—the tracks run even deeper. From now on, this music when played strikes some dormant chord within, it surfaces a memory, an experience, an emotion, something I thought was lost. Jack always made us learn the songs “off book” and I think this is one of the reasons why: he wanted them to live on, inside us.

Rehearsing this concert without Jack – the repertoire chosen by him – has been an experience of immense grief, wonder, magic, and community. Each song is charged with emotional truth. When Jack took us through a new song, he’d help us discover its meaning, which might be different for each of us: sometimes a song would embody a certain emotion or mood, or Jack would encourage us to tether it to a person or a memory. These moments gave us glimpses of what makes a great artist like Jack: a highly original, creative, compassionate perspective on the wild combination of life. Without him, we are left to do this work as a community, led by our new, wondrously talented conductor, Oli, whom we adore. Thank you, Oli, for keeping us singing. 

When we’re rehearsing, I often feel that Jack is in the church with us. I don’t want to sound too “woo” about it, but the experience is almost physical. I can hear his voice and see his open, expressive face. Sometimes while singing a song, one of us will quietly weep, perhaps move to the pews and take some time with our grief. Thanks to our incredible volunteer choir committee, every rehearsal we make time to share memories of the choir, of Jack, and we laugh and cry about some very Jack thing he once said or did. The way we are as a community, the way we support each other to grieve, to sing, to laugh—this is all Jack. As if we're tapping into the same seam that nourished, exhilarated, and pained him. We conjure him: we sing him back to us.

The great astonishment of life is that it simply goes on. The worst thing in the world can happen, yet still we wake up here on Earth. Still singing. We miss you, Jack.