Indiana Alumni Magazine

The Life of a Singing Hoosier

A student's journey through a great IU musical tradition.

by Jennifer Wagner

It was anything but easy growing up in a house of music. My father, Doug, is a composer and the chairman of performing arts at North Central High School in Indianapolis. My mother, Sandy (Riddell, BME'73), is a former choir director with a penchant for all things relating to musical theater. I studied piano from the time I was old enough to reach the keys. Voice, clarinet, and organ lessons soon followed. Our dinner table conversations frequently turned into music history quiz shows, with my parents trying to stump one another with trivia from their college days. As their only child, I honestly don't know what my parents would have done had I turned out devoid of any musical talent.

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I began pawing through the extensive record collection in our basement. One day, as I flipped past the faded covers, I came upon a dingy cream-colored album decorated with bright magenta writing. It read: "Singing Hoosiers In Concert, 1973." I had always known my mother was a member of the group while she was at IU, but I had never asked her what was so special about it.

Audio clips:

Click song titles to listen to selections from the Singing Hoosiers' "Magical Musicals" CD. If you don't have RealPlayer G2 or higher, you can download RealPlayer Basic at no cost. (Note that the download and install process may be slightly intimidating for novice computer users.)

Buy CDs:

You can order Singing Hoosiers CDs through the IU Alumni Collection secure online store.

Her eyes sparkled as she recounted tales of mirth and mayhem from her years at IU. She showed me her yearbook pictures, played me all her Singing Hoosiers recordings, and tried to instill in me the idea that this group was more than just another choral ensemble. Honestly, I didn't get it. After all, a choir is a choir no matter where you go, right?

Ten years after I found that record, I found myself in Bloomington, a mint-condition IU student in search of my own Hoosier identity. I was relatively subdued and painfully shy, but I had one extremely vocal passion: I loved to sing.

Although my intended career path at the time was either journalism or medicine, I knew I had to have music as part of my everyday life. The logical solution to this dilemma, of course, was to audition for the Singing Hoosiers.

Uncertain though I was of my musical abilities, I went into my audition with a classical opera piece and a song from the award-winning Broadway musical, "Rent." The group's director, Michael Schwartzkopf, BME'69, MM'76, and a panel of current members patiently listened to me sing. When I saw my name on the call-back list the next day, I ran to the nearest pay phone to call home.

"Mom!" I said, gasping for breath, "You'll never believe this, but Dr. Schwartzkopf wants to hear me again tonight!" She was ecstatic but warned me not to get my hopes up. In her day, she said, people rarely made it into the group their freshman year.

At the call-back, I was humbled by the number of talented people I was up against. Still, I thought I had a chance. The next day, my heart beat faster as I walked into the Music Annex to check the list. I hadn't made it. My spirits and my ego hit rock bottom. And now I had to call home again.

I was sobbing as I tried to explain to my parents what went wrong. I felt as though I had somehow let them down. Then my mother told me how she got into the group after she transferred to IU in the spring of 1970.

"I went into my audition with nothing prepared, so Dr. (Robert) Stoll took me as a harpist. Then he found out I could sing and arrange music," she explained. "At least when you make it next year, you'll know you made it as a singer."

That was just what I needed to hear. I could always audition again, which is exactly what I did. This time I made it, and I officially joined the Singing Hoosiers at the beginning of my sophomore year.

The first day of rehearsal, I walked in the door and was immediately greeted by at least a dozen members of the group. Names, hometowns, and majors came at me so fast I hardly had time to shake each hand being thrust in my direction. It became instantly clear that I hadn't just joined a choral ensemble; I had been adopted into a family.

After the introductions, we began warming up, and I quickly reached a second conclusion. Not only had an incredible bunch of young, friendly people just accepted me into their ranks, but this group could really sing! I could scarcely hear my own voice as I blended with the sopranos around me. I tried to sing louder, thinking I was falling short of the director's vocal expectations, but I saw the same expression of frustration as I looked around at the other new members in the room. Dr. Schwartzkopf must have seen it, too, because he stopped the exercise midphrase and said, with a big smile on his face, "New people, stop trying to outsing your neighbors. You're going to absolutely ruin your voices!" We then continued our warm-up as a true ensemble, and I knew I had found my niche at IU.

My first few months as a Singing Hoosier were atypical. In a normal year, the group travels and performs for different events, from alumni gatherings to symphony concerts. Typically, new members take several weeks to go over the standard repertoire and learn the ins and outs of the group before they are allowed on their first road show.

In the fall of 1998, however, the opera department asked us to be the chorus for its production of Bizet's "Carmen." So we spent week after week learning how to be cigarette girls and gypsies, with the occasional regular rehearsal thrown in when time allowed. We learned choreography in the lobby of the Musical Arts Center, and I frequently found myself walking across campus, cassette player in hand, practicing the moves on my way to class.

As anyone who has been in the group will tell you, the true test of new Hoosiers is whether they can survive their first road show. For me, that road show occurred at Crete-Monee High School near Chicago. After we finished up our performances in "Carmen," the entire group headed north one weekend for a show choir competition. We were supposed to help with several seminars about IU and share our experiences as members of a collegiate show choir. At the conclusion of the weekend, some of the group would perform part of our standard show in front of all the other choirs. No pressure, of course.

The night of the concert, I donned my white dress, pulled my hair back, and applied my makeup with the utmost care. Nervous energy coursed through my body, and I tried to go over the choreography and words to songs in my head. Before I knew what hit me, I was standing on the top riser next to my partner for the show, anxiously facing hundreds of high school singers and the remaining Singing Hoosiers who were not performing that night. Then, for the first time, I heard the opening that has become a Singing Hoosier tradition over the years:

From Japan to Puerto Rico,

From the top of the Billboard charts to nationwide television,

From Carnegie Hall to (wherever we are),

The Indiana School of Music proudly presents, under the direction of Dr. Michael Schwartzkopf, the Singing Hoosiers …

Bringing to people around the world America's popular song.

So ladies and gentlemen, raise the curtain, light the lights — the Singing Hoosiers!

At that moment, I finally felt everything my mother had tried to describe to me a decade before. All my fears melted away, and an enormous smile swept across my face. I was no longer just another soprano in just another choral ensemble. I was part of something timeless, something that carries with it a tradition of love and musical excellence.

The show went well. I forgot some words in a couple of songs, and sometimes my feet and hands refused to do the same choreography. But I sang perennial favorites like "Up a Lazy River" and "Favorite Son" with the confidence of an old pro. And at the end of the concert, as the auditorium swelled with applause and cheering, I knew I had nothing to worry about. After all, I was a Singing Hoosier.

But the far-reaching effects didn't hit me until the 1999 spring concert, which both my mother and father attended. The show itself was spectacular. We premiered a choreographed medley of music from the Broadway production of Disney's "The Lion King," as well as several pieces from the smash hit "Ragtime."

But my best memory of that concert didn't come until the very end. It is a tradition that the group closes every show with a rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." As the drums and piano softly play the introduction to the piece, the director asks any former Singing Hoosiers in the audience to join the current members on stage. Since the weekend of spring concert is traditionally a reunion event for alumni, a large number of people began migrating toward the Musical Arts Center stage.

In that group, of course, was my mother. She somehow found her way up to the top riser and stood next to me as we sang the "Battle Hymn" together. After the concert was over, she began chatting with other alumni around us on stage. They were conversing as though 30 years hardly mattered. I heard stories from their years in the group, and I saw how proud my mother was to introduce me as her daughter. In fact, I even heard my father, who received both bachelor's and master's degrees from Butler University, mutter under his breath, "All this almost makes me wish I had gone to IU!"

The fall of 1999 brought a plethora of performances. We worked with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Erich Kunzel, the renowned conductor of the Cincinnati Pops, for a 100th anniversary celebration of Hoagy Carmichael's life and music in Indianapolis. We performed at the IU soccer classic and the alumni Homecoming breakfast, as well as for several events in the Indianapolis area. The most exciting part of the semester, however, came in December.

Immediately following our annual Chimes of Christmas concert, the entire group headed to Cincinnati for a four-day singing marathon. We performed three concerts with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, and we spent two days making our sixth recording with the Pops, a Christmas CD due out during the 2001 holiday season. We are currently preparing for the 50th anniversary weekend, which will culminate in our spring concert on April 8.

The late George F. Krueger, founding father of the Singing Hoosiers, reflected on the group's 30th anniversary in a 1980 Indiana Alumni Magazine article: "Thirty years? A drop in the bucket so long as the spirit of the Hoosiers exists … Wouldn't it be something if there were a 50th?"

Well, Dr. Krueger, I wish you could be here to witness the spirit of the Singing Hoosiers today. You would be proud to know that it has not faded but grown over the years, as one generation has handed down the traditions to the next. Rest assured that when we gather in April for the 50th anniversary, both my mother and I will join thousands of alumni in lifting our hearts and voices to a musical legacy that will surely outlive us all. End of Article

Jennifer Wagner, of Indianapolis, is a junior majoring in journalism and French at IUB. She has been the alumni magazine intern since December 1998. To order Singing Hoosier CDs, see www.alumni.indiana.edu or call the IUAA at (800) 824-3044.



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