An Unexpected Opportunity to Build on a Family Musical Tradition

When Carole Ann Klove, N ’80, was a student at Duke, she attended services at Duke Chapel and, as a lifelong choir singer, was drawn to sing in the choir but with auditions being quite competitive, she found herself serving as an usher. Decades later, the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic led Klove to reconnect with the Chapel and provided her an opportunity to fulfill her heart’s desire of singing with the choir in G.F. Handel’s Messiah

Klove’s family connections to the Chapel go back to the choir’s first Messiah performance in 1933, which her father William N. Klove, T ’36, attended when he was a Duke student. Now a member of the Chapel’s National Advisory Board, Klove is honoring her family’s musical and Duke traditions by singing in the Chapel Choir whenever she has the chance to fly back to Durham and by endowing Chapel Music to support the choir’s annual performances of Messiah

“Music has always been a part of our family,” Klove says in a Zoom interview from Reno, Nevada, where she works as the chief nursing officer for the healthcare technology company Elemeno Health. “Sacred music draws so many people into the Chapel. We touch so many lives through music.”

Klove has fond memories of the Chapel as the “cornerstone” of campus life when she was at Duke and the site of the capping and pinning ceremony for nursing majors like herself; however, her ties to the Chapel were limited to an occasional visit after graduation. That changed when the pandemic hit and she was living and working in Reno and caring for her mother The opportunity to enjoy livestreams from the Chapel for Sunday morning worship service was a blessing, Klove says.

“In September 2020, we were watching the livestream and the bulletin announced auditions were being conducted virtually by Zeb [Highben, Chapel music director] to sing in the virtual choir,” Klove says. “I thought, ‘That’s got my name all over it ’ So, I auditioned and, Zeb said, ‘Yes ’ The rest is history”

With all of the choir’s activity being online that year, Klove participated in Wednesday evening rehearsals on Zoom and recorded her parts for virtual anthems the choir produced. (For its recordings during the pandemic, the

Chapel Choir was honored as a National Finalist for The American Prize in Virtual Performance.)

As restrictions on gatherings began to lift, Klove was able to occasionally fly to Durham to participate in a Wednesday choir rehearsal and then sing in the Sunday service. As the 2021 Messiah performances approached, she came to campus two weeks in advance to attend rehearsals.

“It was just joyful,” she says about the experience of singing in the concert with some friends and family in attendance. “It was fun to see how inspired they were by the beauty of the music.”

Looking ahead, Klove is planning to participate in the choir’s tour in May to Ireland and Scotland (see story on page 9) and to sing in the 2023 Messiah concerts, which will be the ninetieth anniversary of the performance her father attended as a student.

The trips to Duke campus have an additional layer of meaning for Klove, whose sister, nephew, and cousin also graduated from Duke. Her mother and father are both interred in the Memorial Garden at Duke Gardens.

“It is so special to come out and not only sing with the choir, but also spend time in the Gardens as well,” she says. “I am confident my parents are up in heaven, looking down, thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, she finally got to sing with the choir!’”