CBA Ode to Joy

STILL FINISHING AT THE CODA

Coda Club at Navy Pier, September 16, 2006

A 2001 edition of The CBASO Times reports “all CBASO members and their guests are welcome to join us for our informal weekly get-togethers following our Wednesday rehearsals. There’s no agenda other than fellowship with friends. Sometimes we discuss cases we’re working on, sometimes we tell jokes.” Better still, a longstanding Coda Club tradition provides new members with a free drink at their first arrival. For the past twenty plus years, a group of CBASO lawyer/musicians–billing itself as “The Coda Club” (as you guessed, it’s a geeky musical term)–has regularly assembled informally after rehearsals for food and drinks at various Chicago Loop restaurants where the kitchens remain open late. One chorus member has been participating for the past thirteen years. There is always talk about music at these outings, but conversations often morph into discussions of law practice tips and continuing legal education. It might SOUND like it’s boring (and nobody earns Illinois Mandatory Continuing Legal Education credits), but The Coda Club outings are really quite fun and the conversation is always lively! Sometimes important events are conceived and planned at The Coda Club. The recent collaboration of several CBASO and BBB members led to two performances of the music of James Reese Europe From Ragtime to Jazz at the Harold Washington Library Pritzker Auditorium and Woodstock Opera House. In music, a coda (pronounced CODE-ah) is a passage or phrase that brings a musical piece or a movement to an end, which makes it a perfect moniker for a Club that ends each CBASO rehearsal.

–Program Note by Jon A. Duncan

CBA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS 65