Who’s Who? The Moment of Silence

Rachel has been singing for me since she was barely sixteen years old. I think that her voice is one of the purest, most beautiful sounds I know. There is something childlike about it, even while it sounds so mature. I played one of her songs for someone in the music industry over the summer, and he remarked about how beautiful her voice was. He called it a “story-telling voice.”

Rachel has such a great love of music, and is such a perfectionist, that I think she can barely listen to herself sing, because it is never quite right. But we have certainly had our moments. One of those happened four or five years ago, when the high school music director asked her to sing my song “Evening Lullaby” for the annual high school Holiday concert. I went that night to play for her, and we went out onto the stage and performed the song. It was simple. Just piano and voice. There was an amazing spirit in the auditorium. I felt it. It brought tears to my eyes as she finished the last little lullaby section of the song, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else felt it.

The last chord faded away, and I braced for the applause… but it didn’t come. There were over 300 people in the darkened room, but all there was, was this moment of pure, awed silence. Then suddenly, the place went wild. They clapped and clapped. They gave a standing ovation. We finally left the stage, and just looked at each other in surprise. But the audience would not settle down until we both went back out on the stage. I realized something that night… that most people go through their lives without feeling that spirit that we felt there that night.

A couple of years later the music director called me. He said that they had completed their new music auditorium and that they were having an inaugural concert. He wanted to know if Rachel might be able to come and sing again, because he said that night when she sang was pretty magical. He was right. It was.

Rachel took countless hours out of a completely hectic work and nursing school schedule to help out with this CD, and I could not be more grateful. There is this line in Bleak Midwinter, where she sings, “Yet what I can, I can give him… give my heart.” And that is exactly what she does when she sings. Thanks, Rachel. Love!