Deeply Sad News
The call from Jeremy Tarrant in Detroit certainly had to be bad news, as we normally communicate through the cheaper method of email. And it was: over the weekend, Barbara Jean Madsen had died suddenly.
Barb was one of the singers in Vox, and she, Jeremy, and I were the alto section. Barb was, simply put, a consummate musician. She knew more about early music than most specialists did (and while she was one, in her professional life she was actually a wetlands ecologist), and sang professionally for years at Christ Church, Cranbrook, at the Detroit Cathedral, with Vox, with the New Cranbrook Singers . . . if you have a copy of Vox's CD Josquin and the Lost Generation, listen to the trio in the Graduale, Si ambulem. That's Barb on the top, with that rich, throaty, wonderful sound. Her alto was perfectly suited to early stuff and just glorious; the fact that she read music like the wind was just frosting on the cake. Real altos -- I mean real, natural ones, not sopranos singing in their low range -- are a bit rare, and Barb was one. I could be so in sync with her sound that when we sang together it was unearthly, the way we blended, which is really the point in early music; seamless blend is all, and she, Jeremy, and I could create a sound that would make people sit up and listen. And Barb was funny and fun to boot. When it hit me this morning that I would never get to create that sound with her again, I really lost it.
Barb was on her way to a family reunion on Friday when she called a taxi to take her to the airport. She never made it. Apparently she had a sudden epileptic seizure and died instantly. A very small mercy. I've been getting emails from various folks to let me know the news, and we're all stupidly stunned. I expect that the sadness will hit me hard later, but for now, I think we're all wondering: why Barb? why now? Barb was just a few years older than I, which is to say not old at all.
This posting isn't designed to assuage my grief, as I doubt it could, but it does bear for all of us a message that bears repeating: we have limited time on Earth. If you love someone, tell them. If you need to be in touch with someone, do so. If you have unfinished business with someone, finish it. One of the most moving emails I received was from another Vox and Cathedral singer, Patti Rose, who wrote that she was spending the day Googling old friends and making sure that she was in touch with them, because -- well, you never know. You can't know.
Barbara Jean Madsen. Requiescat in pace.
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