Special Edition Spring 2022: Carmen Cygni
My “swan song” to St. Catherine University’s Women’s Choir
As you’ve probably already heard, either from a disgruntled faculty member, distraught choir member or someone in between, the Women’s Choir here at St. Catherine University is being shut down. After decades of direction under Dr. Patricia Cahalan Connors, the music department is officially being dissolved despite protest from the student body as Connors retires without replacement.
The cut of the choir is the last hit that the music department will have to take. With the removal of the theater, dance and music majors, all that’s left of the musical arts on this campus are out-of-use practice rooms in the basement of the Music Building, a dance studio-turned-lounge above the Frey Theater and dressing rooms that will grow dusty and cold rather than bustling with excitement and noise. The university boasts one of the foremost performing arts venues in the city with our beautiful O’Shaughnessy Theater. Where is our own presence?
I’ve been a member of a choir since I was in elementary school. Without fail, every Wednesday night from grades 2-11, I learned, trained and grew as a performer. I give choir and music complete credit to my identity. I truly wouldn’t be who I am today without the experiences I’ve had with these programs.
When I was a high school sophomore, we had someone from the school district come in and try to “fix-up” our school. They, like St. Kate’s, proposed that the best way to cut down on spending was to increase class minimums, which, like St. Kate’s, directly targeted the arts. Our elite, eight-member, audition-only chamber choir was the first to go. Despite protests, petitions and many a strongly-worded email, I had to say goodbye to the best experience of my high school career. Does this sound familiar? It should. Four years later, the same thing is happening in this very community.
As a senior looking at all of my options for higher education, I wrote my Common Application entrance essay on the importance of music in my life. That essay got me into St. Kate’s. I was finally reassured that after the tumultuous and quite traumatic experience of my high school choir career, I would find a place in an institutional choir again. I was excited to be under the direction of Connors and gain a whole slew of new knowledge as a performer and a person. If I had had any idea that something like this would happen again, I wouldn’t have even considered St. Kate’s as a place to settle.
We, the students of St. Kate’s, are people. We are not machines. Passion is what keeps us ticking in a world that tries to zap it. We are not defined by our careers, we’re defined by what drives us, what keeps us going and sane and strong.
I’m tired. I’m tired of having to fight an administration that won’t listen. I’m tired of having to defend what I’m passionate about. I’m tired of having to justify to concerned friends and family that I’m okay with it, really. I’m not okay with any of this. I’m angry, and I’m tired. I’m nowhere near ready to let our choir go, but I have no choice. I’m being forced to abandon something that’s been a pillar in my life since I could speak because of a budget cut. Sing me a different song, please.
Truly, at the end of the day, I’ve been forced to make my peace with the fact that I’m not going to have choir in my life next year. I’m not going to live in anger. Again, I’m tired. I’ve done that. But let’s take a step back and think. Why am I being forced out again? Budget cuts in place of students finding a creative outlet? One less professor to pay instead of passion, joy and a place of belonging? I’m disappointed and I’ve made my peace.
At some point, an administration member will step into the O’Shaughnessy, on our St. Catherine University campus, to see a performance, whether it be a moving dance exhibition, or a one-act play competition, or even a few weeks ago, with the St. Catherine Choral Society taking its final bow and Connors doing the same. Knowing that the decisions that they’ve made have prevented students from pursuing that same avenue, they’ll have to make their peace as well.
