Splish Splash

Our kid choir summer concert is this Saturday, Monday was our dress rehearsal. After two long hours of standing and singing and sitting and waiting, we surprised the kids with roughly 800 water balloons. The clean-up was kind of miserable, but the water balloon fun itself was pretty magical.

Thanks go to Cooper and his friend for filling all the balloons in the janitor closet in between their musical numbers.

Play Ball!

A few weeks before school ended Sophie had the opportunity to sing the national anthem with the other elementary chorus singers at a local AAA baseball game. We went to support her, then stayed for the game. Peter even joined us after a long day of missionary work. Phoebe was on a school trip, so she missed the game.

She did a great job!

The weather turned cold during the game. I held on as long as I could, but I finally retreated to the van during the eighth inning. I took Topher with me and he found several more photo ops.

The game went into extra innings, so Bryan, Cooper, and Sophie (Peter had driven separately and had already left) decided to call it and headed for the van. As they were walking out a hit ball landed right at their feet. It was a pretty cool souvenir.

Spring Serenade

Cooper and Phoebe had their final school concert of the year. All the seniors were given boutonnieres to wear, probably so the audience members could identify them. 

Phoebe sang with Nightingales, the select treble choir.

Cooper sang with Cantus, the select SATB choir.

They both sang with the concert choir as well.

Can you find them both in this picture?

Near the end of the concert, the choral director read off the names and post-high school plans for all the seniors. Cooper's included his mission and BYU. We all thought it was very cool that his teacher read off the whole name of our church, people often truncate it.

We grabbed a few pictures with our singers when it was done.

 It's been so great to watch them both blossom as singers over the last year.

Excellent concert, Cooper and Phoebe!

Seize the Day

Sophie had her spring orchestra/chorus concert. She was the second chair violin in orchestra and has come a long way since she started. For the chorus portion of the evening, the sang the opening solo for Seize the Day. My friend, whose daughter is the sweet redhead who sand at the mic a little later in the song, took this video and shared it with me. I think she sounds great!

Bonus, Bryan's parents arrived at our house a few hours before the concert and were able to attend!

Choir Kid

Saturday was, according to Phoebe, one of the best days of her life. She and her high school treble choir traveled an hour into New Jersey and competed at a choral competition. They performed around 3:00, then found out at 5:30 that they had made it into the evening showcase that started at 7:00! As soon as we got the text from Phoebe, we all jumped into the van and drove to see the performance!

They did a wonderful job and were named the first-runners-up to the Grand champions.

It was a very late night (we got home just after midnight), but I'm so glad we made the drive to support her! 

(Somehow we didn't get a picture of Bryan, but he was there too.)

Sing Low

Cooper participated in a Low Voices choral festival today. He and six other young men from our school district joined young men (and a few young women in the tenor section) from five or six other school districts for most of the afternoon and evening. They worked with two professional choral directors and learned three songs that they performed for the families at an informal concert at the end of the festival. They sounded great! I'm so glad that Cooper has had opportunities this year to grow as a singer and musician.

We Love to Sing

A few months ago Cooper's chorus teacher invited him to be part of their school's delegation to the annual county chorus concert. This involved extra choir rehearsals during the school day so he would be familiar with the songs they would be singing. The event took place yesterday and today. 

Ten high schools in our area brought a select number of their choirs together for two days of learning music, singing, and camaraderie. Each chorus director selected one piece of music for the combined choir to sing, and then taught and directed it. All of this work culminated in a concert that happened tonight.

It was such a fun evening of music! Cooper looked great and the choir sounded wonderful. Bonus, three of his friends from church who attend different high schools were also in the choir.

It made my heart so happy to see the joy on Cooper's face while he was singing.

Well done, Cooper!

The Work of Christmas

Before we get to Christmas, the Saturday prior to Christmas was full of celebration. 

In the morning we had our ward Christmas party. After the movie nativity we made last year, I wanted to do something a little simpler. In March the idea came to me that all the Primary kids should draw pictures of the scenes of the nativity and we would put them on the wall like an art gallery. We asked the kids to draw them during singing time a few Sundays in November and December. But the last Sunday we planned to finish the project, church was canceled due to snow. We sent out a message to all parents of primary kids and asked them to have the kids do the final picture at home. We got fewer of that one, but the ones they did were awesome.

We set it up before the party started. I love how it turned out.

The first picture was of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

The second picture was of the angels and shepherds.

The final picture was of the Wise Men and the star.

When the party was over we rushed home and loaded up the car for our final kid choir performance of the season. We had been invited to sing downtown in a nearby city that is famous for its Christmas traditions. We sang to draw in crowds and bring their attention to an emergency shelter that our youth serve at once a month during the cold time of the year. Our set was about an hour long. We performed the same songs we'd done at the interfaith concert, as well as standard Christmas carols. Bryan came as the sound guy and set up the mics and speaker. Just as we were about to start we discovered that our entire file of audio tracks had disappeared. While my friend and I directed the singers, Bryan recreated the set list on the fly by remotely connecting to his desktop at home. He's amazing and I'm so thankful for him!

We were all chilly, but it was warmer than it had been for most of the week, a miracle that we were grateful for. Many of our singers couldn't be there, but we had some bonus singers in friends and siblings that joined us, so we had enough people to be heard! We performed in a courtyard next to an inn on a busy street for foot traffic. We had a steady audience the whole time, though not everyone stayed for all the songs. Those that listened seemed appreciative of what the kids were doing. And we're glad we could help the emergency shelter in their fundraising efforts.

The Show Must Go On

Cooper and Phoebe were supposed to have their big high school holiday pops concert last Wednesday. Instead, we had a night at home because it was snowing and the concert was bumped to the next evening. I took this picture near the beginning of the storm.

The choir director was thankful they had a snow date! On Thursday we went and heard all fifteen musical groups the high school offers, including four rock bands. Cooper and Phoebe both sang with the Concert Choir, Cooper sang with the select SATB choir, and Phoebe sang with the select treble choir. They sounded fantastic! Two fun highlights were The First Noel by Phoebe's group (they stood spread out in the audience and sounded angelic) and Cooper wearing a Hawaiian shirt and playing the bells as a Beach Boy in Little Saint Nick (we had no idea he was going to do that).

The only bummer of the night? We were asked to put our phones away during the whole concert. The only pictures Bryan got were right before the concert started and then right after. So we have no videos to share.

One of the sweet YW leaders from our old ward (her son sings in the choirs too) brought flowers for Phoebe!