I am going to interrupt the series of memories with a post about the choirs at Maranatha. Last night, my church was privileged to host the Maranatha Chamber Singers, a group of which I am an alumnus. I was able to travel on five choir tours in three years. Chambers used to travel once in the fall and once in the spring. I have often said that choir tour was the best thing that I did in college. I was involved in sports and plays and other events, but nothing beat choir tour for sheer enjoyment.
I enjoyed the bus trips. Hanging out with college friends, walking up an down the aisles, trading jokes, endless games of Rook or looking out the windows at the new terrain that we were always passing through. I always tried to do my homework before tour. I knew that I would do very little (if any) on the trip itself, so I usually just left my books in my dorm. Visiting the homes of church members was also a memorable experience. Folks were always very kind.
Last night's Chamber's Concert was one of the best that I have heard in my 15 years around MBBC. Hand's down. Mr. Ledgerwood always does such a good job with harmony and over half of the package was acapella - kind of appropriate since I always remember him trying to get the pianists to play more softly when I was in choir. Looks like he just decided to go without the accompaniment altogether. Other new things included:
- Formal dresses on the ladies
- Tuxes on the men
- Larger choir (40 vs 36 when I sang)
- Mr. Ledgerwood's hair seems to be under better control than it was back in the 90's
Things that are still the same include:
- Mr. Ledgerwood's hand gestures - minimalist but effective
- The emphasis on harmony over volume
- Singing in "the round"
I missed "O Thou, In Whose Presence" and "Jesus Paid It All", but the current selections were outstanding as usual. I also enjoyed seeing several soccer kids in choir. There seemed to have been more of them in the fall, but the spring '08 Chambers include Joel Smith, Kat Alley, Jarid Lawson, and Laura Kennedy. The Chamber Singers leave for their tour on March 7th. If you can make it to a concert, I highly recommend it.
The Madrigal choir just returned from their tour. Soccer/Madrigal members include James Collard, Chris Jochum, and Hillary Lockhart.
7 comments:
Josh, you popped into my head and lo...
Good to see you living strong my friend. Man, its been eons since we last hung out and blew stuffed animals with our 12 guages at your place in IL.
Next time you fly out look me up - I live by the MKE airport and will probably be working out of the house again beginning in April.
Now that is a "blast from the past". Good to hear from you, Phil. Let's get in touch
Coach, you're crazy.
You forgot Andrew Solarek in Madrigal and Lisa Collogan in Chambers. Duh.
You know? I thought they were in choir, but they aren't listed on the Chambers and Madrigal homepages, so I thought they had dropped out.
Yes, good 'ole Phil Landowski. . . lot's of good times in jr. high. He was my buddy when I was in Mr. Wappelhorst's class. Once of the all-time great names.
You shot stuffed animals... Somehow, that doesn't surprise me, Coach!
Yeah, Chambers!
I was good at it, too. If anyone has a stuffed animal problem, I can take care of it.
Thanx for posting that coach. I wondered how the concert went. I love all of the songs we sing. Our choir has come a long way to blend the way we do on those accapela songs, but I think we sound pretty good. Dr. Ledge is amazing, absolutely brilliant.
Ive never been on tour, so I'm looking forward to it! 2 weeks!!
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