Problems with Wax

O Magnum Mysterium; Chamber Choir of Europe; Nicol Matt; Conductor; Morten Lauridsen, composer

I remember reading about the Willard Intercontinental Hotel at 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW when reading up on what Washington, DC, had to offer for tourists in 1988. The old girl had just received a multi-million dollar refurbishment in 1986. She has an illustrious history. The property on which she sits served as a hotel site for years, even before the site was bought by Henry Willard in 1850. Julia Ward Howe wrote the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” here in 1861. Also, that year, amid threats of assassination, President-elect Lincoln was smuggled into to town and into the Willard to conduct business before his inauguration. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his “I have a dream” speech in his hotel room at the Willard in 1963 in the days leading up to the March on Washington.

My three favorite buildings in Washington, DC, are the Union Station, the Old Executive Office Building and the Willard. The Willard is an absolutely beautiful building. So you can imagine my excitement when I started playing gigs there in 1999.

They have a room that they call the Crystal Room: high ceilings, murals, fluted pilasters, green scagliola columns and crystal chandeliers and sconces create an opulent and intimate turn of the century environment. Many weddings occur here. And I have played many weddings here.

During one such wedding, an elaborate candle tree hovered over the piano and the pianist. Minutes before the ceremony started, someone bumped the candle tree and hot wax spilled all over the front of my tux jacket. An older gentleman who worked at the hotel, possibly since the day that MLK wrote his speech, called me over to the coffee room right by the main door. He had me take off my jacket, then, after fetching a giant coffee filter, he placed my wax-stained jacket up against the red-hot coffee urn with the filter in between. He held it there for eight seconds. That coffee filter absorbed every molecule of that spilled wax; there was not a shred of evidence of wax or stain on my tux jacket. I like the Willard.

Two years ago, I played for a wedding ceremony at a bed and breakfast on the Eastern Shore of Maryland on a Saturday afternoon. I had a tight schedule; I was singing with the Annapolis Chamber Chorus on a concert that evening. I don’t like to wear a suit or tux jacket in the car; they wrinkle so easily. So, I generally wear a more casual jacket in the car and change after I arrive. When I was done at the wedding ceremony, I quickly packed up my keyboard and, even quicklier, hung my tux jacket in the car in order to hightail it back to Annapolis in time for the touch up rehearsal before the concert.

After I arrived back in Annapolis for the rehearsal, I went to change back into my tux jacket – only to find huge wax glops on the right shoulder and several more all the way down the right sleeve. It must have happened at the bed and breakfast earlier in the afternoon. I don’t know how I missed them when I hung the jacket in the car just an hour before.

I had two things in my favor.

1. I had worn a black Reebok track jacket in the car.

2. The conductor had me singing in the back row on this concert.

So, I sang on a formal concert wearing an old track jacket, with my tux shirt and black bow tie, and nobody said anything. The big work on the program was “Lux Aeterna” by American composer Morten Lauridsen. A lovely work in five sections, I find it beautiful, spiritual, romantic and cosmic, all at the same time.

Morten Lauridsen received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush in 2007 at the White House. The White House sits on the other side of the US Treasury Department from the Willard Intercontinental Hotel.

Credits: To Julia Ward Howe, President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., three fine American citizens, wouldn’t you say? Thank you for the “trumpet that shall never call retreat”, for the notion of “government of the people, by the people and for the people”, and for sharing your dream with a nation and generation of people who need to hear it.