When Jody Hill Simpson arrived at the Hancock Meeting House in late September for what would be the first rehearsal of the Norway Pond Festival Singers since the choral program took a hiatus last spring, she finally felt whole again. This particular fall day was something that Simpson had been dreaming about for more than a year – and was it ever music to her ears.
Simpson has spent her life bringing people together in the pursuit of musical joy – from singers as young as six to those looking for a hobby later in life. It doesn’t matter to Simpson what their level of ability is or if they’ve ever even performed in front of a live audience. What motivates Simpson to lead a collection of music enthusiasts is that shared passion for the process, for working toward a future show and chipping away at the minute details.
“It’s the only thing I can comfortably say I’m really good at,” Simpson said.
That’s why the last year and a half have been excruciatingly difficult for Simpson. The coronavirus pandemic all but took away the thing – outside of her family – she loves most in this world.
Simpson always tried to remind herself that the days of lockdown and staying away from others would end, but admittedly there were some dark days along the way.
“When you take that away for a whole year, it was like a part of me was lost,” Simpson said.
Not being able to lead her festival singers, which she founded in 2007 with the help of fellow Hancock resident Tricia Froling and consists of about 30 women over the course of fall, winter and spring sessions, left a huge void. Add in the fact the Junior Mints were not able to meet for the most part and the Music on Norway Pond music series she founded not long after arriving in Hancock was forced into a pause, and it was hard not to feel nostalgic about what was and long for when it would all return.
“The underlying pulse of my life is my music,” Simpson said.
But now, Simpson is back to doing what she loves, really what she was born to do and the appreciation that comes with it is hard to put into words.
“It’s just pure joy for all of us,” Simpson said.
For the last few weeks, Simpson has been in her happy place on Thursday afternoons, teaching and coaching, working through songs for two upcoming Hancock Family Christmas Concerts in December. Just last week the Junior Mints Kiddo Chorale resumed meeting on the Hancock green.
But even with the return to in-person rehearsals, preparing for a show comes with a lot of uncertainty.
“You want to be able to read the community and the world,” she said. “But it’s hard to read right now. You just have to be patient.”
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson has done what she could to stay engaged with both her pupils and the local music community. The Junior Mints put on a performance of “The Secret of Captain Midnight” in May, but even that was upended by coronavirus, as the performances were originally scheduled for December. And while it was a live show, the audience could only be found behind a computer screen in the comforts of home.
While many music organizations took to online connections to put creative works out to the world, Simpson only did so a few times because there is just something lost not being in the same room.
“I want to make that connection and I don’t think you do that on a screen,” Simpson said.
She has a new piece being written by Jazmina MacNeil and Megan Henderson that is planned to debut next fall. It centers around two women who work in a maternity ward in Chicago and their blossoming friendship during the times of the Spanish Flu.
“It’s exciting to imagine that happening at some point,” Simpson said.
Simpson grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the middle child with an older and younger brother.
She was born into a musical family with her dad Dick Hill playing the clarinet and her mom, Polly Hill, a piano enthusiast. Simpson said she remembers her parents often playing at parties and performing duets.
She took piano lessons, but what she really loved was singing in the church choir. When she attended Pingree School, a private day school in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, she had a teacher by the name of Mrs. Kennedy. And that’s where her love of music really took hold.
“She lit my fire for music,” Simpson said. It’s where she started her first musical group called The Pingree Octet and they even made a record.
Simpson began her secondary education at Middlebury College in Vermont, but then transferred to Dartmouth College, her father’s alma mater as part of the second class to allow women. She joined the glee club, started an acapella group known as the Dartmouth Distractions, and was recognized with the MacDonald-Smith Prize, awarded for high achievement in musical performances.
She received a double major in elementary education and music, but upon graduation she decided to take a different career path.
“I just didn’t want to do that yet,” Simpson said.
Instead she got into the banking world with New England Merchants National Bank and as she put it “I was a social worker for rich people.”
“I wanted to be in Boston, live that city life, get more sophisticated,” Simpson said.
She had met her husband Rick during her senior year at Dartmouth. He was at the school to perform with his group, The Harvard Krokodiloes, and Simpson said “it was pretty much love at first sight.”
Rick was and is an incredible tenor, Simpson said, and the plan was simple.
“He was going to be an opera singer and I was going to be a business person,” she said.
Then at a party in Boston, Simpson met a woman who was a master choral conductor. Simpson didn’t know there was such a thing, but quickly realized that was the path she wanted to take. She applied to three schools and “by some miracle” she got into the New England Conservatory.
It wasn’t easy, but Simpson navigated her way through the three-year program.
“You can either do it or you can’t,” she said.
At her master recital, she was quite pregnant, giving birth to their oldest son Charlie one week after graduation. She has also spent time at the New England Conservatory as a guest conductor.
She taught four years at the Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill and led singing groups in Concord and Grafton, Mass.
Then in 1989, Simpson founded the nationally acclaimed PALS Children’s Chorus at W.H. Lincoln School, a public school in Brookline, Mass. It was designed as an after-school program for Lincoln students, providing training in choral singing, dance, and drama after budget cuts eliminated the majority of arts programming from the school.
“That’s the most significant part of my career,” Simpson said.
But one month in, the newly hired conductor quit and Simpson took over.
For 16 years, Simpson guided the ensemble, which at various times included all three of their sons, Charlie, Peter and Jon, building relationships with arts organizations including the Boston Symphony Orchestra. PALS performed with Boston Symphony Orchestra and at places like Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood Music Center.
Much like her groups now, Simpson made it her mission to help any student with a passion for singing.
“I proved you can teach anyone,” she said.
But eventually, it became a lot of work as PALS grew and Simpson knew it was time to step away.
“I was feeling the burnout and there’s nothing worse than a conductor with burnout,” she said.
After having spent their entire adult lives in and around Boston, the Simpsons felt it was time to relocate.
“I always wanted to live in the country,” she said. And they found it in Hancock, moving to the region in 2006.
That first year she dabbled in music, but never really let on her resume of experience. She helped with a children’s pageant at All Saints’ Church in Peterborough “without anybody knowing what I did.”
She’s also helped with pageants at the First Congregational Church in Hancock, and realized the slower speeds of country living fit her perfectly.
But she got that itch to start something new and thus came the Norway Pond Festival Singers and the Junior Mints.
“They started small and got better and better,” Simpson said.
The ability to give others a place to expand their creative reach is what keeps Simpson going.
“It’s about creating experiences in groups that you’ll take with you for the rest of your life,” she said. And it’s about building a trust that goes both ways. “I love taking them on the journey.”
That trust translates to the performances, which for Simpson is both moving and gratifying.
“That’s where we are giving this gift,” she said.
Simpson said she always jokes with Rick about her outfits and how it looks from the back – since that is all the audience will see.
“All my clothes look good from the back,” she said.
The Hancock home they share is on Main Street – and her dad’s classmate at Dartmouth actually was the one who put an addition on it many years ago. It’s not a big piece of property, but Simpson said it is perfect. They have a beautiful view of Norway Pond and she has built up the gardens over the years.
“It’s a little yard, but a lot of gardens,” she said.
She enjoys cross-country skiing and horseback riding, something she travels to Arizona and Montana to enjoy, and is big on spending time in her kitchen. But all of those are just hobbies.
Music, and more specifically singing, is her life. It’s in her blood and no matter where she goes, it will always be the constant thread that connects her to every stop along the way.