Clear back in November, I think it was, Mrs. Terry asked if anyone would be interested in attending Honor Choir in January. Since I missed the opportunity to do All-State Choir at the beginning of the year, I was all over that. The catch was that it cost like $75, which I did not have in time to pay for Honor Choir, so I didn't think I would be going... until Mrs. Terry handed me the music a week before pass-offs. :/ I got to work and learned all of the songs in time to pass them off and be eligible to go to Honor Choir.
I ended up being the only Alto II going, but I guess that turned out to be not so bad. The girls that went besides me were Kelsie Blake & McKenna Terry (Soprano 1), Sara Carling & Lexi Cox (Soprano 2), and Christi Cox & Johanna Bowman (Alto 1). The boys that went (I don't know what parts they sang) were Tyrell Reidhead, Aaron Downward, Matt Vaughn, Andrew Corry, Ben Cserepes, Ian Hiscock, Blaine Allan, and Landon Croteau. The fifteen of us, along with Mrs. Terry, Mr. Terry (our bus driver), and all of their kids left after school on Thursday. The drive up was pretty long, but it was also fun. We stopped in Fillmore for dinner, so I got ahold of Rendon and Clay and had them come over to say hi. We got to our hotel in Salt Lake around 9:30, which gave us some time to play around in the pool, and I went running in the exercise room. My roommates were Kelsie and McKenna, and we had a pretty good time.
Friday morning, we all headed to Taylorsville High School for our rehearsal that began at 9 am. At first, I was assigned to a seat on the back row next to a girl named Cassandra Anderson, who looked ridiculously similar to my sister-in-law, Kristen. She acted like her, too... it was weird. After a while though, I was moved closer to the front, where there was an empty seat from someone who didn't show up. There, I sat next to a girl named Anna from Pine View. She was pretty sweet. 
The practice actually wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. We would sing for an hour and a half, get a fifteen minute water/potty break, sing for about another hour and fifteen minutes, then have a 2 hour meal break. We weren't dismissed to go back to our hotels until 9:00 at night. Through the practices, most of what we did was just singing the songs while using different techniques that our director taught us.
Our concert was at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon, but the women had a practice at Abravanel Hall at 8, which went until 11. The boys came in at like 10 so we could have a mixed practice (there were two songs that the men and women choirs sang together), then we were dismissed at 11. I appreciated this arrangement, because it gave me a chance to go to lunch with Keith and Rachelle. We went to this little place downtown called the Tin Angel Café, and it was a way cute little place. I ordered House-Roasted Lamb on Ciabatta. (: We got back to the concert hall in time for me to be in my seat at 1, and the concert began.
Due to a series of uncontrollable traits (i.e., the fact that i'm an Alto II and I'm on the "taller end of average"), I ended up being in the balcony, rather than on stage. There were so many girls at Honor Choir, that they couldn't even fit all of them on stage. The taller Alto IIs and Soprano Is ended up getting stuck up in the balconies on either side of the stage. Oh well... that meant I got to sit in the same place the whole time, rather than going off and on the stage for when the boys came on. Plus, I had a good vantage point to take pictures.
The concert went really well, I think. I teared up once or twice, actually. I loved when the boys sang, because they just had some really great songs. One of them, "Jump Down, Spin Around" was pretty dang funny. Some other ones, like "Vive L'Amour" and "Dona Nobis Pacem" were just beautiful. My favorite part, however, was when they were warming up and their director went to the piano and began playing Celine Dion's song from "Titanic." Then the boys all came in in their falsetto and sang "Neeeeear, faaaar, whereeeeeeever you are...". Then they went up a half-step and did it again. I got a video of this phenomenon (there were a few hundred boys doing this, by the way), but I don't dare even try uploading it on here. Oh well.
We ended up getting home at like 10:00 Saturday night, after another extremely long bus ride. It was a pretty fun trip though, in the end. I mostly hung out with Blaine, Ian, Landon, and Ben the whole time. That fact is mainly what kept me occupied the entire trip. In all reality though, I really feel like Honor Choir was worth it. I learned a lot, and it's not something I'm ever going to forget. Thank you, MerTer. (:
3 people find me hilarious:
How awsome! Im so jealous, I miss choir. I remember we sang "Dona Nobis Pacem" for one of our shindigs. Brought back memories.
I was there, i actually could see you easily the whole concert, creepy huh haha.
yeah Chasen... thanks for saying hi. goodness.
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