It’s been suggested many times by some students and faculty in the Conservatory that I write about my time living in the District of Columbia, the US nation’s capital, since I’m often asked, “How’d you like living there?”

I liked living in the District, for the most part.  Although the weather was awful much of the time with high humidity in the Summer and the freezing Winters.  In the Summer, I would take a shower and leave my apartment to take Metrobus over to Connecticut Avenue & K Streets, and my shirt would be pretty much soaked by the time I got there from the high humidity.  In the Winter, it could be blazing hot one day and snowing the next.

Metro has nice new Metrobuses now.  They were red, white and blue when I lived there.

Even though I knew all of the following before I moved there from watching the newscasts from Metromedia (WTTG), I was still given the friendly “lecture” as to what to call my new City by some of the locals.  They made it clear that you never say “Washington DC,” unless you want to sound like an ignorant tourist.  We were living in the District of Columbia, or as locals referred to it, the District or DC.  The official name for the nation’s capital is District of Columbia, not “Washington DC.”  (Look it up!)  You can call it Washington but don’t put DC on the end because there is no Washington in DC.  They’re synonymous.  So on my temp jobs, I was always asked, “Do you live in the District?”  And I would say:  Yeah, in Foggy Bottom.  To which some people would respond:  “Foggy Bottom?  Will excuse me!”  And I’d have to explain that it wasn’t like that since I lived in a studio apartment and it was close to George Washington University and also the Kennedy Center where I performed.  They would usually say to that, “Kennedy Center?  Will you must be pretty good to perform there.”  I’d elaborate that I’m a chorister and perform with the Choral Arts Society of Washington (and later with) the University of Maryland Chorus with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), which is the Kennedy Center’s Resident Orchestra.  People would usually say, “Oh well how nice!”  Years later, when I went back to visit, I was over in Georgetown and I remember seeing a yellow school bus which said on the side, “Public Schools for the District of Columbia.”  I thought:  Well, they got that right.  There’s also a University in upper NW called the University of the District of Columbia or UDC.

Here’s a sign for motorists leaving Maryland and entering the District.

Here’s the ambulance service for the District:

A small group of us from the Conservatory moved to the District after graduation.

I wanted the experience of performing with major symphony orchestras and major Orchestra Choruses, which I accomplished whilst living in DC with performances in the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra and guest national and international orchestras.

The first thing I did musically was to audition with Norman Scribner’s Choral Arts Society of Washington which performed on a regular basis with the NSO and touring national and international orchestras.  The audition went well.  I got a call from them saying, “This is the Choral Arts Society of Washington and we would like to invite you to sing with us this season.”  That call made my day.

Whilst singing with the Choral Arts Society, I also realised that Dr Paul Traver’s University of Maryland Chorus was practically the Official Chorus of the NSO at that time as they had several engagements with the NSO and international orchestras in those days, so I wanted to perform with them as well.

I began asking:  What do I do when I want to perform with both Orchestra Choruses?

A couple of seasons later I auditioned with Dr Traver and was accepted with the University of Maryland Chorus. Although a couple of summers before that, Dr Traver had already welcomed me to sing with the University Chorus without audition because at the Conservatory I was the piano accompanist for the Chorus that one of his DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts degree) conducting students was Director for, so because of that Dr Traver told me that no audition would be needed based on that. But at that time, I wasn’t living close enough to the University of Maryland at College Park, so my dad put a halt on that and suggested I wait until I lived closer to the campus for rehearsals.

I lived in Alexandria with relatives for awhile, which is a suburb city of the District of Columbia.  I spent most of my time in the District and I knew I preferred to live in the District/in the City so — as I said earlier — I did move into an apartment in Foggy Bottom across the street from George Washington University, with close proximity to the Kennedy Center.

I also found a church job in an Anglican parish in Alexandria.  So after I moved into the District I had to commute out to Virginia each week for my church job.  Church job openings were as rare then as they are today.  I wasn’t able to find a church job in DC at that time.

Every week I took Metrobus up Wisconsin Avenue to the Choral Arts rehearsals.  They rehearsed in Upper NW.  I sang a couple of seasons with them and knew that I also wanted to sing with the University of Maryland Chorus.

But I also learned during Choral Arts rehearsals of the unfortunate one-way jealousy/rivalry between the Choral Arts Society and the University of Maryland Chorus and the made-up stories told about Dr Traver. Such as one of the lies:  One of the basses in the CASW was telling the others, “Did you hear that Paul Traver stormed into the Kennedy Center and demanded that his Maryland Chorus perform Beethoven’s Ninth with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam?  I found that a little hard to believe.  Well, The Maryland Chorus — as they were also known — did get that engagement that apparently the Choral Arts Society wanted.  I asked Dr Traver about this when I sang with them and he told me:  We got that engagement through Margaret Hillis (Founder & Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus) who had recommended us.  She had worked with us here on the campus for a choral workshop, and Claudio Abbado called her and asked for a Chorus in the DC area, and she recommended us.  So it had nothing to do with Traver “storming into the Kennedy Center.”  I did not tell Dr Traver what I had heard in the Choral Arts rehearsal.  I didn’t want to get into that.  And Dr Traver would never have done such a thing.  He would know better.  He accepted the invitations he received and that was that.  He didn’t go around begging/demanding performance opportunity for The Maryland Chorus. He wasn’t jealous of the invites that the Choral Arts Society received.

But some in the Choral Arts Society of Washington (CASW) were jealous of the engagements that the University of Maryland Chorus was getting.  I made the mistake of inviting a soprano “friend” of mine from the CASW to Maryland’s performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis which was also with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.  Well, my friend couldn’t find anything positive at all to say about their performance because her allegiance was entirely to the Choral Arts Society.  I liked both Choruses.  I also liked the Oratorio Society as well.  I regretted inviting her.  Sheila Armstrong was the soprano soloist for that performance and she said on WGMS in an interview, “This is one of the finest Choruses I have ever heard.”  The guy doing the interview said, “We should make mention that this Chorus is that of the University of Maryland.”  The Washington Post described Maryland’s performance of the Missa Solemnis as “The 150-voice University of Maryland Chorus was glorious throughout.”   Yes, they were.  They gave a most memorable performance.  I was so impressed with them and their superb level of choral excellence and how Dr Traver (my choral mentor) had prepared the Chorus.  Unfortunately my friend from Choral Arts couldn’t enjoy it and couldn’t bring herself to say anything positive about the performance.  Yet when I sang with Maryland they never talked about Choral Arts or the Oratorio Society, which were the two others who performed with the NSO upon invitation.

Singing with Maryland was more difficult for me because of the commute time out to the UMD because Metro didn’t go out to College Park at that time.  So the commute on Metrobus made rehearsals more difficult.  I remember one rehearsal where I was walking/running through snow after I got to the campus to get to the School of Music on time for rehearsal.    Disappointingly, that same season the University of Maryland Chorus only had one engagement with the NSO, compared to what they had had in previous seasons where they had 3-4 engagements during the season.  The performance of symphonic choral works was now changing — being reduced — with the NSO.  Far fewer performances.

I was also watching the politics in San Francisco at the time and felt I was missing something by not being there.  So in my second year living in the District, I went on holiday in August for 2 weeks to San Francisco and loved it — especially the weather and the beautiful Bay Area — and decided that’s where I should be.  I also had person after person tell me after just coming back from visiting the Bay Area, “You should be in San Francisco.  You’ll love it.”  One of my temp supervisors told me, “You belong in San Francisco.  I was just there.  The District is too conservative for you.”  But then I had to leave The Maryland Chorus, my church job and my friends in the District.  At that point, I was a little burned out on DC because I found the District to be snotty/unfriendly because of the intense political atmosphere.

So I decided to leave at the end of August the following year and did so and left from Washington National Airport (which is right across the Potomac River from the District) with a stop over in Chicago.

After I arrived in San Francisco, I did of course miss my friends and the UMD Chorus.  But I kept up with The Maryland Chorus through The Washington Post.  I also talked with my former piano instructor who told me that the DC Orchestra Choruses had changed what they were doing — they were having to come up with their own subscription series rather than relying on invites from the Kennedy Center — because the National Symphony Orchestra was cutting back on symphonic choral performances.  And that has remained the same since I left.  So it seemed that I had left at just the right time and when I was performing in Kennedy Center with the two Orchestra Choruses was the height/end of the symphonic choral movement.  So after I left DC, the Choral Arts Society and the University of Maryland Chorus were having to do their own thing.  The same for the Oratorio Society of Washington which later changed their name to what it is today:  The Washington Chorus, so they would no longer be limited to performing oratorios.  And other than the annual Messiah rut/ritual (which usually goes to the University of Maryland Concert Choir), who is performing oratorios today?  No one.

So that is pretty much my experience living in DC for the three years I lived there.

I also worked as an office temp during those three years and that was an interesting experience working in mostly the federal government offices, which I would like to talk about briefly.

I think everyone should have the experience of living in the District and being around the white house, capital hill and all that.  If they had that experience, then maybe, people would stop seeing these buildings and the people in them as anything special.  I worked right across the street from the white house and came to see the place as just another building, and I think most District residents share that view.  I’d be on Metrobus and we’d go right by the white house and no one on the bus even looked that direction.  I worked for many of the government departments and agencies including the Smithsonian and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).  The NAS wanted to hire me permanently.  Most of my jobs were quite good and I stayed there a long time.  At the end, my agency told me, “You’ll have no problem finding a job in San Francisco with your skills and our recommendation for you.”  It was so very kind of them to say that and I also regretted having to leave them because they were excellent and treated me really well.  And they were correct.  I didn’t have any trouble finding a job in San Francisco and registered with — what was it? — about 12 agencies to cover all basis and they too kept me busy, until one of the major law firms wanted to hire me as a Word Processing Operator for their Word Processing Department.  Musically, I auditioned with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and sang with them, but I did miss the University of Maryland Chorus at the same time.

I had mixed feelings about leaving the District and moving to San Francisco. I did feel unsettled after I moved here.  It took me awhile to adjust.  But in hindsight, I’m glad I did although a part of me would like to live in both cities.  I don’t remember this being the case when I lived there but they have a new acronym for the Washington Metropolitan Area.  They call it the DMV, which stands for District, Maryland and Virginia.

The local newscasts anchors/journalists/reporters say during their sign-off, “Reporting from the District, I’m [name]” or “Here in the District, “I’m [name].”  The national newscasts nearly always say, “Washington DC” because they think that their stupid viewers won’t know where the District of Columbia is.  For special national newscasts, I have heard some reporters say, “I have to stop for a moment because there’s a plane flying over the District and you can’t hear me.”

The District has really changed since I left.  I have been back once to visit and things were very different, with many things gone.  I would not want to live there now with the current maga fascist regime and dictator in power.  That rude and crude finger-pointing, fist-pumping scum of the Earth can fuck off and that also goes for the maga trash around him including that moron who serves as white house spokes liar and chief propagandist.  I can’t stand that bitch.  Do we understand each other?!   And I must ask:  How does Marco Rubio live with himself?  What a piece of basura.  I didn’t know that he hated other Latinos/Hispanos.