Introduction Fred Banducci leaned back in his recliner, with a deep and profound sigh. God but he was tired. After his first weekof teaching music at Russet High School, he discovered he had less and less energy at the close of each day. In fact,he sometimes seriously wondered if he could stand teaching even one more day of school. His predecessor in the music department, Arden Brooks hadn't dispensed with very many amenities when it came to music education. When Fred first walked into the music class at Russet High, he found that none of the students' voices were tested, the High School band was incapable of carrying a tune in a bucket and the sheet music was a complete disaster. One of his first official duties was to order music, since, in essence, they had nothing to work with excepting a few dog-eared copies of Pomp and Circumstance. Surprisingly enough, after the school board got over the shock of the price of new sheet music (they last had ordered sheet music ten years earlier) Fred began voice testing, finding that he had a shockingly talented pool of students. He originally came the town to teach music after spending two years working under the hawk eye of Daniel Keys, a tyrant of the nth degree who had somehow been selected to be the Conductor of the Chicago Symphony. Fred never would have taken the job teaching high school were it not for Keys. young man, Fred had demonstrated a clarity and range voice that attracted considerable attention wherever he sang. On the other hand, he was almost a natural for the lyric opera, perhaps even the Metropolitan Opera. That, like so many other opportunities his life drifted elusively out of his grasp when he was saddled with the responsibility of caring for his sickly mother until her death several years back. In the shadow of his middle years, his voice still vibrant but lacking its former lustrous durability, he simply aspired to conduct an orchestra, even a high school band would do, so long was music, for music was the sole focus of Frederico Banducci's life. Where other middle-aged men are simply content to play at golf, football, drinking other diversions, Banducci's sole motivation, one which haunted him his every waking hour, was that of his love of the classics. By October, he began feeling pessimistic tinged with desperation, about teaching at Russet High. Fred stood in front of the Senior Choir, his arms akimbo, staring angrily at them "Just what do you people think that is? Look down on the fourth line from the bottom. That's a rest! That means you don't sing for one whole beat! How many times do I have to go over this stuff with you? Now, let's do it once more from the top." They had been working on the music which the choir was scheduled perform the following weekend, as part of the First Annual Fall Musical Chorale. Judging from the steady deterioration of the choir's quality from their previous practice session Fred toyed with whether it might feasible to cancel the concert entirely. Their progress had ceased, and they were getting worse with each passing day. He restarted them for what had to be the fifth time that day, and despite relatively smooth beginning, the bass line suddenly went flat a good half a note, and he could see disturbance among the boys in the back row. "Hold it! Hold it! Cut it off right there!" he screamed, his face flushed with anger. " You guys in the back row. What's so darned funny?" He waited, his hands on his hips. "Come on, why don't you tell the rest of us. After your performance, maybe some of the rest of us need a good laugh." Later, after he dismissed the class, he called Joyce Chambers, a troublesome flirt with a surprisingly silky, clear voice and asked her what the problem had been with the guys in the back row. "Those guys in the back row were playing with my bra." she said, matter-of-factly. "I told them to cut that shit out, but they kept messin' around." Fred snorted a bit sarcastically, and none too gently added, Tomorrow, I want you to change places with Janice Burgess in the front row. Maybe that will cut down the hanky-panky in the back row." To his dismay, the next day with Joyce Chambers sitting in the front row, although the back row seemed more orderly, the bass line improving markedly from their previous performances, he was embarrassed at the short skirt Joyce wore. Every time she sat down in her chair, her skirt rode up so high it too, became personal distraction. That thought was abandoned, however, in the rush of satisfaction that came when the choir suddenly sang everything through flawlessly, not once but twice. He was stunned. The night of the concert, with the high school gymnasium packed to the rafters with family and friends, the entire choir sang flat, rustled pages and in general did everything had cautioned them never to do. It was a travesty of a performance. After the torture ended with fall of the curtain, Fred met with some the parents, all of whom who pressed around him with congratulations on a job well done. Despite what he considered to the worst performance of his life, he was startled the heartiness, the glistening eyes, the greatful looks he saw in the parents faces. They actually believe their children did well, he mused to himself, as he graciously thanked each of them for their attendance. Fred angrily strode home that night, bitter tears running down his cheeks, ashamed at his role in such a mockery of the fine art of music. At home, he flopped on the couch, sitting there until dawn tinged the eastern sky with pink edges, listening to an early recording Aida and drinking himself into insensibility. Finally, when the day fully engulfed the sky, he slept fitfully, curled up on the couch. Fred had a secret love for Handel's Messiah. He had sung it in parochial school as a teenager back in New York, then again college, and more than anything else, he wanted the choir, his choir, sing it at Christmas, despite their previously miserable performance. He pushed them as never before, driving them unmercifully each day. drilled them in breathing, harangued them into harmony. He screamed at them, in their disharmony, he chided them without surcease for inattention. He broke more than a few batons, hammering them in frustration against his music stand, which the first week in December, began to take the appearance of a battered victim of war. He even once startled the entire men's section literally throwing a baton at them after a series of petty squabbles had broken out over a missing lunch ticket. Slowly, like a child first learning to walk, the entire ensemble began improving, almost on a daily basis. He finally decided, late in October, that they would sing the entire Messiah that Christmas. What followed his decision was six weeks sheer hellishness, he redoubled his efforts to coax, badger threaten the choir to excellence. One and one-half weeks before they were scheduled to perform the Messiah, late on a Saturday afternoon, he was sitting at home when the phone rang. It was Patricia Claybough, the Chairman of the Board the Chicago Symphony. "Fred, Daniel Keys just was admitted into Mount Sinai Hospital with a heart attack, and we are less than two weeks away from the Handel concert." she began, hesitantly. "Do you think you conduct the orchestra and choir?" Fred's heart pounded. The full symphony orchestra, with thousand voice choir. With Keys out of the way, who could say? Perhaps the conductor's baton would fall into his hands, after all. Yet, glancing out the window, he could see through the falling snow, students were gathering over at the high school for their practice session, something that he had insisted upon. Some of the parents had complained about their kids attending class on a Saturday, of all things, but still hardly anyone had missed a session after the initial shock. They needed every minute practice they could get. "Listen, I have a class to teach right now, " he stammered. Could I call you back with an answer later on today?" "Why, certainly Fred. I'll be here in the office all day, awaiting some word on Conductor Keys' condition, call anytime. I can't begin to tell you how grateful we would be if you could take overfor Mr. Keys." She cleared her voice, momentarily, then continued, prepared to offer you quite reasonable recompense for your trouble." Perhaps it was the knowledge of the opportunity that stood in the wings, but seemed as if the chorus sang flawlessly that afternoon. The usual comedy in the back row ceased, everyone kept their eyes fixed on him as he coaxed, pleaded and cried to them for the best that they had to give. For that was what he had grilled, drilled and hammered into each of their heads that was expected. He drove them without mercy. He drove them well past the point where they probably were restless, from standing. Yet, never an eye faltered. No one complained, and on his way back home, he had admit, despite the opportunity to stand before the Chicago Symphony and choir, HIS choir, was looking better and better. Vainly he sought a compromise within himself. Both concerts were scheduled for the same day. He sat, transfixed by his window, watching the snow falling heavily across the darkening sky, as the evening fell. When he finally picked up the phone to call the switchboard in Chicago, he realized with a start that it was now nearly six o'clock in the evening, and that no one, not even Patricia, would still be in the Symphony Orchestra Business Office. Sunday morning, attended Mass for the first time many months, sitting quietly with his thoughts, in the back row, barely listening to the Priest. The thought of opportunity had waged war nearly all night with the sense of accomplishment felt from the high school choir. Overshadowing it all, there was an abiding sense of quiet dignity, mixed with pride. Sunday was another sleepless night, and in the fitfull light Monday morning, he tried calling the Symphony Business Office once again. As fate would have it, Patricia answered the phone on the second ring. With peculiar lump in his throat, his voice breaking, informed her that due to 'previous obligations, would unable to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra' and so, and with his hands shaking, it was over in a minute. He politely bid her and his possible career as a principle conductor farewell. The night of the performance of Handel's Messiah arrived, and despite record ten-inch snowfall, the gymnasium was packed with humanity, so much so that they were forced to set up folding chairs out on the gymn floor. Backstage, everyone was a-titter, as the minutes inexorably began ticking away. When the choir assumed their positions the improvised tiers made out of raw wooden planks for the last time, Fred made his entrance to address the choir before the curtain rose. He was dressed impecably in a tuxedo, and he stood for a moment, while everyone found their places. He looked slowly at each person, and then he smiled deeply, with feeling, and said, "This is what you have worked for. Give it your hearts." And so it began. That night under the baton of Conductor Frederico Banducci, the high school chorus sang as never before. Certainly as any music critic would quickly note, it was not a flawless performance. For a high school chorus still in its infancy, it was outstanding. As their voices passionately worked their way through Handel's finest work, the full moon tiptoed softly over the eastern horizon, and cast its light upon the newly fallen snow. By the time the choir and band approached the opening to the Hallelujah Chorus, the moon was fully risen, and as the spellbound audience of the tiny burg of Russet stumbled to their feet for the chorus, outside in the newfallen snow a winter fox paused, one paw lifted, a shiny silver blaze down its chest, and sniffed the air, ever alert for danger. As the first burst of sound leapt across the gymnasium from the combined voices of the chorus, outside the fox continued his journey across the snow, back to his winter den another way. The teenaged children from that first mixed choir of Russet have long since grown up and most have left the community. Banducci eventually retired from the school teacher's position he held for nearly three and one-half decades before he surrendered his baton. Few, if any of the silver fox's ancestors from that eventful night, still survive, but here and there, from time to time, there are tales from hunters who report seeing a fox with a trace of a distinctive blaze on its chest. In the hearts and minds of those who participated in that first choir, and the minds of those who followed the years thereafter, the words Frederick Handel live and on. Handel's Messiah is still sung each year by a High School Choir, now nearly two hundred voices strong. Customarily, if his health permits, there is a very special chair reserved for an elderly but still vibrant Frederico Banducci, close to the front, where he can hear every nuance, or as he sometimes comments dryly, "They want to make sure I catch every mistake, you see." With the first whisper to the last thundering echo from the band and orchestra, he sits, keeping time with his cane on the floor, a smile on his face, his eyes closed in rapture, as the immortal music of The Messiah washes his tired old soul. On a quiet, tree-lined street of Russet he lives with clarity and distinction, still training promising young voices in diction and tonation, pausing frequently, an act of a tired but contented old man reinforcing and uplifting one of the many meanings Christmas for all who chance to pass by his way.