An Evening At Bovard

So tonight I participated in a collegiate choir festival on campus with 13 other choirs from the LA area. Pretty much every college within a 50-mile radius participated, with the exception of UCLA. As it was, a lot of the schools there were Claremont schools! And you could tell when Caltech took the stage. They just had that look about them.

It was 3.5 hours of music, most of which was really good and several songs I knew. For those of you who might remember some songs from high school, I heard "Locus Iste", "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners", and "Kde Su Kravy Moje?". At least hearing some songs I knew made the time go by quicker.

We performed in the middle of the whole thing and had a pretty good performance. We ended with a gospel song. Now all choir people know that the best way to draw a big reaction from a crowd is to end with a gospel song. Even a poorly performed gospel song can still create a great deal of noise from the audience. Well, we didn't perform poorly, at least I didn't think so, so we made a lot of noise after we finished.

The most disturbing part of the evening was seeing a countertenor from CSULA hitting notes that I think most females couldn't hit! My goodness! Males SHOULD NOT be able to hit those notes or be able to sound like that at all. I swear that if I closed my eyes I couldn't to tell if he was male or female!

This really was my first experience seeing other college choirs perform and it really made me think about why I chose to go to USC as opposed to the other schools I applied to. Although there were many reasons why I chose USC, I'm glad that I did choose a school with a great music program. I love doing this! I love performing and singing challenging songs and having it being a part of my life. And none of the other schools I applied to would have given me this experience.

I have been so blessed to have performed at venues like the opening of the Pasedena Civic Center, or at Disney Hall with the LA Philharmonic! I have performed for numerous crowds and for people such as Henry Winkler and Steven Hawking! I have also been blessed to have met some of today's big named, comtemporary composers such as Eric Whitacre, Morton Lauridsen, James Hopkins and Frank Tichelli! These are experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. I love singing and I'm glad I'm at an institution with a program that challenges me and gives me these opportunities.

I realized tonight that if I went to any of these other schools, my passion for music would just have to be satisfied with 'just enough'. But life is a song and I want to sing it! And I am....