04/28/2024
A great week of singing with the Carolina Choral Artists, meeting new people, reuniting with others, meeting IRL online friends I’ve been internet connected to for years, finding new connections, learning new music, singing familiar music, all the things.
Thank you to James Mauk for the invite and to the leadership of the ensemble for taking care of allllll the details. (As someone used to coordinating or doing those things, they are not unnoticed.)
I’m tempted to tell you all the crazy connections I found with people over the course of the last 4 days. From the fact Jake and I both come from the Covington lineage (Diane Covington/Meredith Covington Clayton) and he taught with Chris Munce who I’ve known since our early Choir Baton/ Choralosophy Podcast joint podcast episodes years ago. To Governors School kiddos. To super little things like asking a singer behind me when he first started using a tuning fork and it was hearing/ working with Mt SAC singers in 2013 - which undoubtedly had Lindsay Decoste and Robert Decoste in it - and of course Lindsay is the first person I remember using them - which would’ve been in 2013 when she came to NAU.
But one of the most special was getting a text from Valerie Hoffman Trantum right before the concert Saturday night that her beloved friend Renee (who she co-taught Nashville Notes with after we left Merrol Hyde in 2012 - and I’ve heard about for years) Renee’s daughter Ella was coming to the concert. Ella is a senior music therapy student at ECU but from Nashville. Hugging dear friends of your dear friends is the next best thing to hugging them IRL.
I could tell you how special is was to sing Peace of the Wild Things, which is my favorite from conducting it at GSW 2019 or singing Sleep which makes me think of the fact Eric Whitacre was a speaker at last years NetApp’s Sales Kickoff or sitting next to former Wake Co teacher Kaitlyn Garner, meeting James Taylor IRL finally, or seeing teacher friends at All State East - kudos to Luke Hancock for hosting the choir for the informance Friday night where the goal was to show HS singers you can still sing after HS even if you’re not in music full-time and , seeing Allison Taylor - Sanderson’s choir teacher and her THIRTEEN SINGERS she brought to the event, catching up with Emily Turner and Jennifer Justus Mueske ❤️
So much. I told myself this would be short. Did the best I could. 😆
You can have everything you want in life, I do believe. The reality is it might not be when you want it, how you want it, or all at the same time. But it’s there and it’s possible. ❤️
