Spence's Choir Sang in Rome, Then Joined Italians for "Creep"

That is a serious repertoire. I know none of it. I know the words to one song with the word "Silvy" in it, and it isn't that one.

But day four is the one the singers talked about. The choir performed a friendship concert with an Italian ensemble at a local school, and afterward, one senior told the paper, the two choirs "all circled around this tiny little keyboard in the bottom of this church" and sang. The songs, the paper reported, included "Hey Jude," "Bohemian Rhapsody," and "Creep" by Radiohead.

An American girls' choir and an Italian choir, no shared language, around a tiny keyboard in a church basement, finding common ground in a 1992 song about not belonging. I cannot think of a better summary of being a teenager on any continent.

They didn't have much time to get to know each other, another singer said, but "our shared love of music really unified us."

"Creep" is the song I sing in the car when I believe nobody can hear. Somebody always can. The youngest, from the back seat, once asked whether I was "OK, Dad," at the high part, which I took as a review.

There was more. Day trips to Nemi and Tivoli. Tours of the Forum and the Colosseum. A cooking class where they made pizza from scratch. One senior's favorite memories included the Colosseum at night, bookstores, thrift shops, and "trying as many gelato flavors as humanly possible."

Spence has been sending girls out to see things since its founder, Clara Spence, opened the school in a brownstone on West 48th Street in 1892 and organized "sightseeing trips with Miss Spence." I am not sure Miss Spence had Radiohead in mind. I am sure she would have approved of the gelato.

I asked the eldest, who sings in her school choir, whether they ever do anything like that. She said once, on a bus, but she wouldn't say what they sang. I named "Creep." She said no. I sang the high part to check. She asked me to stop at the second line, and I did not.