Glee Club Rehearsal

This season, in addition to our full choir numbers, we added small group songs that included costumes and choreography. I played this song for my codirector when we were in the planning stages and she immediately loved it. But we knew this one would take a lot of extra work. The solution? We put our own kids in it, that way we didn't need to make space for it in our rehearsal schedule, we could just have several playdates/rehearsals to work on it. And that's just what we did.

I was standing in the back of the house next to the sound booth (aka Bryan sitting at a folding table with the sound board) when I realized that Linus' mic was turned off. You can see the moment that Cooper saw me frantically motioning for him to reach over and flip the switch on the mic pack. Charlie Brown was the hero of this number.

Phoebe lost most of her voice the day before the concert. Thankfully, she had enough for her low solo line in another song and for her duties as Snoopy.

See that skirt Sophie is wearing? She and her friend spent at least an hour on Saturday making those fluffy tutus. I think they really completed Sally and Lucy's looks.

Why We Sing

Sophie performed at our last concert of the season. She played her violin with the orchestra and sang with the chorus. Both groups did a great job. The orchestra was surprisingly good, considering that most of the kids are still fairly new players.

Sophie was one of two featured soloists with chorus. She sounded beautiful!

Yes, this is a zoomed-in screenshot from a video, but it's the best we've got of her solo.

This has been the busiest year for musical performances in our family. Though it's sometimes been chaotic, I love that the kids have gotten several chances to grow as musicians and performers.

It's Time to Be the Hero

Have you heard of Maycember? It's a phenomenon that exists in our household. May, much like December, is full of end of the year (school year) activities, including concerts.

For the final concert of the year, the middle school chorus joins with the high school chorus. This was nice for us because it combined two concerts into one: Cooper sang with the high school concert choir and Phoebe sang with the middle school chorus.

Phoebe served as the chorus vice-president this year. That means she got to help announce the songs her choir performed. They also presented their director with a bouquet of flowers.

They sounded great. I especially loved when they sang "Homeward Bound."

The concert choir had an awesome entrance through the audience. Cooper is the eighth person in this line walking up to the stage.

This is a large choir and they sounded wonderful!

Towards the end of the evening, the directors handed out awards. Phoebe was one of two middle schoolers to be given an award. She earned it for her leadership and service to the choir. When her name was called she was surprised and kind of flustered. She looked at me and asked if she should go up to the stage. I said yes and she went up and received her award.

And then she prepared to sing her solo! The middle school and high school choirs joined forces and sang "Hero" by a composer who goes by the handle Pinkzebra. One soloist from each school was picked to open the song and Phoebe was floored when she got the solo! She sounded lovely!

At this point after the concert, Cooper and Sophie were both off with friends, otherwise they would have been in this picture too.

It was a long (at least two hours) but wonderful concert. I am so thankful that we live in a school district that values musical education so highly. And I love that my kids get to contribute to that music!

Easy Street

We saw Phoebe perform as Lily St. Regis in her middle school production of Annie. She stole every scene she was in! She did a fantastic job with both her high and squeaky New Jersey accent and her low Texas accent. And for those of you that remember last year when she was the mom in Matilda: this is the same wig. Somehow it seemed even bigger this year.

She has one more weekend of shows.

Break a leg, Phoebe!

Waving Through Another Window

The final video I'm going to share from the concert is from Sophie. This, Waving Through a Window from Dear Evan Hansen, is the same song she sang for her school talent show. But instead of the 90 second version, this is the whole song. Bryan bumped the key up a few steps so that it fell a little more comfortably for her.

What Is This Feeling?

Sophie and her friend Gemma had a lot of fun preparing What Is This Feeling? for the concert. They're pretty well matched vocally since they're both such strong singers. The acting was a fun bonus for both of them.

Fun fact: there's a chance this movie won't work. When I uploaded it to YouTube I got a warning that it might not be visible in all territories. So, if you can't see it, let me know. 

One More Time

Cooper and I saw Sophie's final performance as the lead. It was an even better show than Thursday had been. The mics cut out a few times, but Sophie was clearly audible all the way to the back row. Her acting was authentic and her singing was beautiful!

Well done, Sophie!

Sing, Sing a Song

Several weeks ago, Sophie's school chorus teacher invited all the kids to audition for the Pennsylvania Music Educators District Ten Elementary Songfest. Sophie was one of twelves kids picked from her school. They've had extra practices to learn the music and prepare for their concert, which happened last Friday evening.

On Thursday night Sophie told us that, after another audition, she'd been picked to represent her school and audition for one of two solos available at the concert. She, her eleven classmates, and their chorus teacher took a school bus to the host school on Friday morning and spent the whole day practicing with the entire group, two-hundred fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and their guest director. Because she doesn't have a cell phone, we didn't know how the day was going, including how the audition for the solo had gone.

Bryan took a picture of me taking a picture of our family at the concert. His picture was better.

We arrived a little after 6:30 for the 7:00 concert. The first time we saw Sophie was when she walked in to take her place with the rest of the group. The concert was relatively short, only six songs. They did a great job. There was one song that had arm movements and many of the kids looked like they were just marking the choreography, kind of bored and trying to get through it. Sophie performed each move with intention and energy. It made such a difference.

As we neared the final song, my heart started to pound. I couldn't figure out if I was nervous that she didn't get the solo, or nervous that she did. When they finished the penultimate number the director went to the microphone and announced that their last song, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman, would feature two soloist. And then she announced their names.

Sophie was the first soloist! She started the whole song and sang it beautifully. I was so proud of her that I felt happy tears running down my face.

Afterward the parents from each school gathered at a designated spot in the theatre. I got to meet some of the moms of Sophie's friends. One of them told me that her daughter had been rooting for Sophie, that she knew Sophie would get the solo. I was concerned there might be some hurt feelings that Sophie got the solo, but everyone was kind and complimentary. She has a sweet group of friends that are in the musical and chorus together. I love that they were so supportive.

On the way home, Sophie told us that she'd gone through a few more rounds of auditions during that long rehearsal day. She hadn't known she had the solo until around 5:30, not too long before the concert started.

I love that she's getting these musical opportunities!

Waving Through a Window

Sophie performed in her school's talent show tonight. She was the twenty-fourth act out of thirty-three performances. When her name was announced the audience went wild. It was the loudest reception anyone got. I thought maybe that was my mom bias, but everyone else in the family agreed. Maybe we're all biased? She did a fantastic job and got an even bigger round of applause when she finished.

The only down side is that for some reason the video Bryan took didn't actually record. He was so disappointed. Sophie was willing to try again. When we got home she sang it, just so we could record it. The music should have been louder, but we didn't realize that until we listened to the recording on the computer and Sophie was busy getting ready for bed. So this is an approximation of what her performance sounded like.

Somewhere In My Memory

Since 2019 (with the exceptions of 2020 when it didn't happen and 2021 when we were still at home, though I did consult on that one from a distance) I've been heavily involved with organizing an interfaith Christmas concert. When our congregation boundaries were redrawn in June, one of the things I mourned was not being part of this concert. Then I remembered that our children's choir would likely sing at it, so I would at least be part of it in that way. It was a small consolation.

In September I talked with my Bishop and he agreed that our new ward should still participate. I was given the task of putting together a musical number to take to the concert from our new unit. Not too long after that I was asked to join a Zoom meeting with the fellow in charge of the concert. My kid choir co-director was on the call too, so we assumed he would be telling us how many songs to prepare. Nope. The meeting was short and consisted of him telling us he was too busy to do the concert (he was trying to finish his dissertation) and apologetically asking if we would take over. We both said yes.

Among the many (many many many) things I've needed to organize this season, this has probably been the biggest. The concert included members from a Lutheran congregation and a Messianic Jewish synagogue, two wards from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that's us), a harpist and her tenor husband, and our children's choir. There were lots of texts and meetings and rehearsals and Marco Polos involved in the planning. 

Here's our early Saturday morning dress rehearsal with the kids.

The concert was scheduled for the evening of December 15. When our former Bishop passed away we were prepared to postpone if needed. We didn't have to, but the memorial on Saturday and the concert on Sunday made for a very long weekend. When Bryan and I went over the schedule for those two days he said, "So it's basically one long day." Yep.

After some eleventh hour drama, the concert came together beautifully. The songs were wonderful. If I'd thought about it I would have asked someone to record the song I directed from my ward, a triple quartet that sang Good Christian Men, but it didn't occur to me. It was lovely. The music the Rabbi brought from his synagogue was amazing and had us all standing and clapping. Both the Rabbi and the music leader from the Lutheran church told us afterward how wonderful the evening was and how much they enjoyed sharing our beliefs with each other.

Bryan did think to record the song I directed from our little choir. Actually, it's grown each season, so I guess it's not so little anymore. Cooper joined us for Christmas, along with two other young men, so we could add a baritone line. I think this is the best they've ever sung it.

It was a spiritually uplifting night of music and it was just what I hoped it would be.

Yesterday we took these kids to perform their Christmas songs, plus several group sing-alongs, at a retirement home. We thought it was an appropriate way to do service on the Sabbath. They did a wonderful job. 

And with that, our extremely full musical season is done.

Let Your Light So Shine

During that beautiful day outside on Monday, Phoebe decided to listen to an audiobook while sitting in her favorite tree. Sophie saw her up there and demanded that Phoebe toss her phone down. Sophie had had a flash of photographic inspiration. She took all the photos that follow in this post. After, while we were looking at the pictures and admiring her work, Phoebe teased that she had inspired Sophie. Sophie told us she'd been inspired by the sun. In all of these pictures, her focus was on the light.

I think they're beautiful, the pictures and the girls in them.

The Magic of Childhood

Our third full season of Valley Children's Voices started rehearsals in June. We practiced nearly every Monday all summer, which was tricky because the other director and I both had to travel, so some duty juggling was involved. All that work culminated in our concert Friday night.

A few moms came early on Friday morning and helped us set up. It usually takes us hours to do this, but with two extra sets of hands the work was done in just over an hour.

Call time was 5:30 for the 7:00 show. As soon as everyone was there we gathered for a picture in our brand new, much nicer (thanks to a choir mom who offered to use her Cricut to make our logo look awesome) shirts. One of our newest singers has terrible stage fright and only stayed in front of the audience for the first minute or so of the concert. I'm extra thankful for this picture that shows everyone, whether they sang or not.

Our theme was The Magic of Childhood. We picked the big choir numbers and the kids picked their own solos and small group numbers. This was our set:

“Everything Is Awesome” - full choir

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” - solo, ukulele accompaniment by me

“Good Day” - solo

“Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?” - younger choir

“Do Re Mi” - cello and two violins

“What a Wonderful World” - full choir, ukulele accompaniment by Sophie and me

“The Girl I Mean to Be” - Phoebe's solo!

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” - small group

“Wake Me Up” - full choir

“For a Moment” - duet

“Naughty” - Sophie's solo!

“Pure Imagination” - older choir

“On the Steps of the Palace” - solo

“A-B-See-Ya Later” - solo

Folk Tunes Medley - full choir

I directed "Everything Is Awesome" and "Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?" "Everything Is Awesome" felt like a run-away train during many of our rehearsals. It finally came together and the performance at the concert was the best they'd ever done it. "Summertime" was fun and sweet and the littlest members of our choir (the five to seven year-olds) did a great job.

I had taught "What a Wonderful World" to the kids and planned to direct it for the concert. But the young singer that was going to join Sophie on the ukulele ran out of time to prepare. (She played the violin for two of the songs, so she was busy preparing, there just wasn't enough time for this song too.) A week before the concert I handed directorial duties over to my co-director and switched to the ukulele instead. I think it turned out well.

Phoebe both really wanted to do a solo and really didn't want to do a solo. She stressed and was super anxious and wasn't sure she would actually do it right up until the moment she started singing. She did a great job! This took so much courage and when she sang you couldn't tell that the lead up had been so traumatic.

Sophie took a lot more initiative in preparing for this solo than she has in the past. She rehearsed beforehand and made sure she was ready, which I very much appreciated. She also did a great job!

In addition to directing two numbers and accompanying two numbers, I was in charge of pushing play on the accompaniment tracks for seven other songs. I'm so thankful to Bryan for gathering all those tracks and putting them into a single file. This helped the whole evening run more smoothly. Directing, accompanying, and stage managing all in one concert is maybe too much for one person. I'm glad he helped lift that load. He was also our videographer for the evening.

The kids were wonderful! They've improved since we started last summer and have gained confidence. Two of the kids who were too shy to do more than sing with the group said they were ready for more this time. One of them was part of a small group number and the other sang a solo in one of the choir songs! It makes me so happy to see them grow and improve.

And now we need to figure out what we're doing for Christmas.

The Ukulele Makes Me Happy

Sophie and I performed in a Ukulele Orchestra concert last night. The performance included us singing a duet of I Don't Want to Live on the Moon. I love that this is something she and I can share.

The Arts

On Friday we went to the high school art show to see Cooper's photography! He had six photos on display and was recognized for his skills.

These two were my favorites. One night this semester he realized he had to have fifty pictures taken by the next morning, following specific lighting and subject prompts. Phoebe was still awake, so she got to be the model. She had no idea she would end up in the art show.

Apparently the most difficult part of photography (for Cooper) is cutting the mats to frame the pictures. He does not like that task at all. But he likes taking pictures.

A fun bonus surprise was hearing Peter sing. He had signed up to help the Open Mic club that night (there were several art and music performances during the art show) and sang an Imagine Dragons song. We happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear him.

I'm thankful that we live in a school district that celebrates and encourages the arts! And I love that Cooper and Peter both shared their talents that night.