Catching up

Well, it's been 3 weeks since I've written. One of the reasons is that I'm now teaching with Kaplan in fairly full force. Another is that I've been a tad lazy. And another is that... Actually, those are pretty much it.

So we had our concerts. And, damn, it's fun to perform. I love performing. I lover conducting. I love knowing that we sound great.

On May 31st, we had our first performance, with the Jr. year-end concert. We were on after Intermission, and my name was on the program as "director". Hehe. Director. Leading up to the concerts, there were a couple of possible concerns. One member is going to cut super close on time, and another had other performances within the school. And it's lucky that we're on after Intermission, since that minimizes the problems the best.

Oh yeah, I don't remember whether I've mentioned it, but we're down to two songs. Two songs that, well, sound *really* polished.


Anyway, I got there around 7pm, with intermission slated for around 7:40. Watched some of the groups, and I just have to say that Carrie does an absolutely wonderful job. She has so much fun with her choirs, and they in return. For her Sr. Chamber choir, they need to do a "leadership project". One of them wanted to an all female a cappella choir, and they performed before intermission. They sounded great.

Intermission came, everyone arrived in time. We went and practiced a bit in the choir room, then we went to the gym. Lined up, and were introduced. Then, I realized that the soloist for the first song wasn't there. She was just a minute ago. What happened? I think she was photocopying music. So, I did some tactful stalling. I rambled. I should've thanked the choir and their time, as I had prepared, but I just rambled about myself, which, frankly, I feel bad about immediately afterwards, thinking "why didn't I thank the choir?"

Anyway, she came back, and we started singing. And we sounded good. I'm pretty sure of it. California Dreamin' rocked. Great solo. Then, did Sweet Surrender, and that was awesome as well. I was at first apprehensive about the acoutics, but it ended up sounding fine. The audience seemed to love it. My friends who came thought we did well as well, and that's all the thanks I need. :)


Sooo, the next night, we had a slot in the Senior year end concert. Well, not a real slot, per se, since we were just going to do our thing during intermission, and not actually during actual performance time. But, I wrangled a "speaking" spot right before intermission. Now, I haven't done public speaking for a while. (I mean in front of a full audience: this was the Maple Ridge Art Center, ACT, and it's a full theatre, packed). Anyway, I minimized my ramblings, and let everyone know we'll be performing out in the lobby.

We got out there, and people were waiting for us already. They were gathered around, interested. We did a tiny bit of warmups, and we were off. Same set. Awesome, as before. The audience loved it. Did my thank you spiel, remembered to thank the choir, and that was it.

What a great, great couple of months of leading a choir!


(Yeah, I'm finishing this up waaayyyy later than this occurred, so the details are low.)