a cappella!

Missed reading the WTOC blog yesterday, but caught up tonight and Ms. Witman's daughter's a cappella concert as well as my upcoming and forthcoming news I think merit this post:

I'm SO excited because tomorrow night will be the first time since I graduated from undergrad that I return to campus as an "alum" to see my college a cappella group sing their Fall Show!
How I loved every year's Fall and Spring show, when alumni from the past 10 years would show up and we'd all sing our final song together- which has not changed since our first season. In harmony, hugging, laughing, with memories of days and years and friends gone by.

I've always either been in more school, or singing somewhere in some other part of the country for the fall and spring shows, and even though I've pretty much kept in touch with my best friends from my 4 years in the group, it will be great to see the "seniors" that were my mentors and guides the first year, as well as meet a whole NEW group of members, NONE of whom were ever in the group with me--even the current seniors!!

I listen to our cd's on long car rides (like I'll have tomorrow to GET to Boston), and really just think about all of the moments on spring and winter tour when we sang those songs, how we recorded them in a tiny attic studio of one of our friends who wanted to be a music engineer, how the parts that I had to sing with all of the high notes were called "randoms" because they weren't an "ooh" chord or a "rhythm" part with syllables like:
j'oh j'now jow, or det doo det det doo, or wer ner, or jikajenjijenjijenjikajikajenjen.

I remember being the music director senior year, arranging the songs myself- first by hand and then on cakewalk and finale. I remember coming up with acronyms for the order of our sets in performance. I remember having auditions for new members and debating whom to take that year until 4am with the current group members, then waking those poor freshmen up at 4:30am and making them come outside in their PJs, take pictures, walk around and get all of the new kids, and then take them to Dunkies (dunkin donuts) for an early breakfast and induct them into the group.

But mostly I remember how happy we were. And the look on our faces when we sang for young kids, families, parents, other college students. And how proud we were of the impact we were making as a musical group committed to our audience and our voices.

And of course, how can I forget my last Spring show--my graduation show, that happened to fall on the night before my "opera scenes" performance at "double-degree-school-number-two-for-overachieving-students
-who-can't-decide-between--a-liberal-arts-education-and-music."

Alternating between belting pop music and singing my high "randoms", and then staying up all night continuing to sing, and having fun at the party in the basement of one of our apartments followed by singing a scene from L'Egisto, Street Scene and the "If I loved you" scene from Carousel was ***interesting****. Although I do have to say I didn't have time to be tired, since I was still basking in the triumph of our previous night's performance, our skits, our jokes, and just ourselves.

My brother at Duke has followed in my a cappella tradition and sings and was music dir. of one of their well-known all male groups. He loves it, too. I just found out that HIS senior spring show is the same day as my Lakme.
Where or where shall my parents choose to go?
Well, I've told them that they can and should go to my bro's concert, since he's accepted a "real" job after this and is going to be all "financially stable" and may not be performing for a while unless it's his own songs in coffee shops!

Oh, wow...remembering those days, and our WEBSITE which listed everything from our audition songs to our majors and even little crazy blurbs we wrote about ourselves

My goal at the time was to be a voice in Disney movies and to be the next UN ambassador to the Middle East. My audition songs were "Because you Loved Me" ----YES, Celine!, and oh, my gosh, am I actually going to admit this?-- the PROLOGUE from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"--the OTHER big goal in my life at the time was to one day sing/belt the part of the narrator. (Yes, I can STILL remember all of the coat colors in order in that song).

I think I've since begged our technical web-person to take my slightly collegiate bio off of the site and direct anyone who may be surfing to my current "opera" bio site- still nothing to look at, but at least it doesn't mention my unhealthy relationship with Disney films or obsession with evading parking tickets and paying meters in Boston, or mention any of my other "talents" at the time which pretty much had to do with singing pop music or MT in an "operatic" style while my friends rolled around on the floor laughing and trying to stump me:
"Sing Brittney Spears 'Baby one more Time' in the style of Julie Andrews".
"Sing Jewel 'Hands' in the style of Celine Dione".

Yep, that was my contribution to the musical society around me at the time--with the larger hope of being discovered by either the "Capitol Steps", "Forbidden Broadway", or Disney.

And look how far I've come...

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