Batlanta County Post
Holly Phoenix, 24-year-old, Soprano Found Alive and... Singing
November 5, 2019
An anonymous tip was called into the Batlanta County Police department early on Halloween morning. The caller claimed they heard a blood-curdling scream coming from inside their apartment complex.
When police investigated the scene, they found a young woman singing at the piano. After confirming her identity as 24-year-old soprano, Holly Phoenix, the police asked her to keep the noise down and closed out her missing persons case.
We at the Batlanta County Post wanted to learn more about the story. So, we contacted Holly for this exclusive interview.
Q: Holly, from your side of the story - what happened? Why have you been missing from rehearsals?
A: Back in June, we had just finished the De-Composers last concert for the year and I was transitioning into a new job. I changed my email address and I notified someone in the chorus, but I hadn't been receiving any emails from them. I assumed that it was just the summer break and that no one was receiving emails. When September came around, I still hadn't received any emails. I was in the midst of another job transition, the other one didn't work out, and I just kind of lost track of time, I guess. I never received an email from the chorus. I had no idea rehearsals had already started for Mozart's Requiem. I'm super bummed to be missing that concert!
Q: So, you weren't getting emails and you didn't reach out to anyone in the chorus. Okay, I guess that makes sense. But, what about Martha May? She swears that you died and that she sang at your funeral.
A: Yea, I laughed when I read that in the report. When I was born, my mother named me 'Holly' after my grandmother. My grandma Holly and I were really close. She taught me how to sing and, after graduating college, I even joined The De-Composers, a chorus she sang with for many years. I actually know Martha May - she and my grandmother used to sing in the chorus together. But Martha's getting older and she must have just been confused. Poor Martha. I'll have to pay her a visit sometime soon. Though I hope I don't frighten her with my ghost-like appearance!
Q: And Bradley Feron, did he see a ghost too? He said he saw you at the last rehearsal.
A: Oh, that guy? He doesn't know anyone in the chorus, certainly not me. He's too self-involved. Honestly, he probably just wanted to see his name in the paper. Typical tenor.
Q: Wow, that's a pretty crazy story. Seems like just a bunch of mass confusion. So, will you be going back to The De-Composers after all this?
A: Honestly, I don't think so. After reading those mean comments in the report from Norene Lexine and others, I don't really feel comfortable there. It's been such a hassle to receive communications from the chorus and they clearly don't appreciate my musical abilities. I'll probably try to just focus on my solo career at this point.
Well, there you have it. The case of the missing soprano was nothing more than a very disorganized community chorus and a flaky soprano.
We, at the Batlanta County Post, wondered if there was something The De-Composers could have done to avoid this whole fiasco. So, we found a company called Chorus Connection that specializes in chorus management best practices and asked them. A representative from the company had this to say:
"Oh yes, we see this kind of thing all the time," Tori Cook, Director of Sales & Marketing, at Chorus Connection says. "Someone in the chorus loses an email address and all hell breaks loose. If the chorus had implemented chorus management software to manage their email communications, this would have never happened. Holly would have updated her email address in her member profile when she switched jobs, and the emails about rehearsals would have gone right to the new address. Joanna could have easily taken attendance on a digital report and known right away that something was amiss."
Tori continues, "Chorus management software could have also helped manage some of the internal conflict with the choristers. If Norene didn't like sitting next to Holly, she could have privately emailed Joanna and Joanna could have adjusted the seating charts in the software to keep these two feisty sopranos away from each other. And tenor Bradley Feron... he could have just checked the member directory to see if it really was Holly he saw at the last rehearsal. Unfortunately, we see cases like this all too often. Really sad tales that result in losing singers."
Case closed, folks. Don't lose another singer, get Chorus Connection to help keep your chorus organized!
Tori Cook is the former Director of Sales & Marketing at Chorus Connection, an active board member of the Greater Boston Choral Consortium, and a soprano with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. In a past life, she was the Music Director of the Harborlight Show Chorus and President of Chorus pro-Musica. When not making music, she daydreams about adopting a golden retriever puppy and scuba diving to exotic locations around the world.