ILMEA, like everything else this year, is different for 2020. District festivals were all canceled months ago, so ILMEA decided to have students submit audition videos. Sylvia auditioned for both orchestra and vocal jazz and made it into both. Instead of district festivals, today they hosted online masterclasses for the students. Sylvia chose to attend one workshop for each ensemble she auditioned into, so her first one was cello.
Her second masterclass was with Kim Nazarian of New York Voices. She was awesome, and Sylvia loved every second of this workshop! Kim talked about how she got into vocal jazz and made it her career, as well as how she and other friends have made having a family a priority while also maintaining a career as a performer.
As Kim was teaching the students over Zoom, she could see their names on the screen as she was watching what she was having them do. She was calling out students who didn't look like they were participating, and 4 different times she encouraged Sylvia and told her she was doing great! (Annah, Caeden, and I were all listening in off-screen.) It was pretty darn cool, really.
The Greenville University Choir visited Ridgeview High School today and had a really cool choral exchange!
As the HS choir came into the gym for their regular class time Dr. Wilson, warmed up both choirs and the GU choir demonstrated physical movements that go along with their warmups.
(Mr. Marchese brought his study hall in to observe and took this cool picture of both choirs from up in the top of the bleachers.) A few other teachers and administrators came to observe, and Jeremy and I were happy to be there to watch as well.
Ridgeview choir sang 3 of the pieces they're working on for the GU choir.
Then Midnight Blues sang a song:
Then the Greenville Choir sang.
It was neat to see Ridgeview alumni featured in some of these. In the second song, Arise My Soul, Annah played her violin.
In the third song, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, (which is the GU Chamber Singers), Annah is the soloist at the beginning and end.
Allison sang the solo on God So Loved so beautifully, I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.
Here is the playlist of some of the GU choir songs:
To end their time singing, the choirs combined to sing The Lord Bless You and Keep You.
The GU Choir stayed to eat lunch at Ridgeview, and both choirs crammed in the choir room with their lunches and visited! It was a pretty cool exchange!
What a wonderful sermon at church this morning; the whole series has been so good so far.
We all really needed it.
Pastor Lisa had candy conversation hearts handed out to each person in a baggy. Then we could go forward and smash our hard heart with a hammer and leave it there and pick up a soft [gummy] heart to leave with. It was pretty therapeutic and really meaningful.
After church, Kamoni came with us, and we stopped for lunch at Culver's. The kids were singing the national anthem with Midnight Blues in Peoria at the Rivermen hockey game, and we got there quite early. It was nice outside, so we walked around Peoria for an hour.
We went down to the riverfront, but didn't have enough time to go into the museum and check it out. Caeden and Kamoni found this lookout point and decided to "emulate" the scene from the Titanic movie.
They don't look much like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett, but they are funny.
We came upon the giant American Gothic sculpture and they decided to do "heart hands." Oh boys.
They need their own suitcase and pitchfork, I think.
We came upon the Holocaust Memorial and were stunned.
We had noticed this sculpture on our way past the Civic Center at the beginning of our walk, and the boys stopped to read about it on our way back in. It is called "Knockin' on Freedom's Door" by artist Preston Jackson, and it honors Peoria's role in the Underground Railroad.
We went into the Civic Center to wait for the rest of the Midnight Blues crew, and the boys just had to ride the escalator up and down. I love that they enjoy the little things in life.
I enjoy watching the zamboni!
The Rivermen were playing the Evansville Thunderbolts today.
Midnight Blues and some Rivermen folks "backstage" before singing the anthem...
They did an excellent job singing!
Fun in the stands...
It was a really good game!
There were at least 6 intense fights, and the last one was pretty gruesome...One Peoria player had his head repeatedly bashed into the ice until it started bleeding profusely. The Evansville player who did this was ejected from the game, and it took about 10 minutes to try to get the blood off/out of the ice. It was intense, and we hope the guy is ok--definitely concussed at minimum! Yikes!
Peoria won the game, and we went back to Bloomington-Normal. We were going to have supper at Avanti's but it was super busy, so we hit up Monical's instead--no disappointment to me! Yum!
Kamoni was a little tired of having his picture taken, but he should be proud to have survived a whole day with us! We loved having him around!
Sylvia spent the last 2 days in Peoria at the IMEC conference. She earned a spot in the All-State Vocal Jazz ensemble, and was one of only 26 high school students from Illinois to do so, and only 4 from our district qualified! We are so proud of her for this amazing accomplishment, and she enjoyed every moment of this honor!
Sylvia went to the Civic Center on Thursday morning, and the group started rehearsing at 9am. These musicians had a great time together from the beginning!
Thursday evening, when Sylvia and some of her new friends set out for dinner at Avanti's they had a bit of an "issue" and had to take their food to-go and eat it on the floor during a quick break in rehearsal later! Memories made!
I spent the last 2 days subbing for Ridgeview music classes, and had a ball. Caeden joined me during lunch time, hanging out in the office.
Dr. Wilson, Annah's choir director at GU, took her to the IMEC conference as a member of ACDA and future music educator representing Greenville University Choirs, so we got to see her!
Although her job as head of Music Education, professor of music theory, and teacher of many music courses was eliminated and she is no longer at GU, Professor Weiss still represented the university at IMEC and gathered some alumni for this photo. She also allowed Annah to stay with her at the conference so she wouldn't have to pay for a hotel room. They had a wonderful talk about Annah's immediate future at GU through her future as a music teacher. (Annah is also glad to know that Prof. Weiss received both her bachelor and masters degrees at SIUe.) Truly, this is the kind of teacher and person Annah wants to be!
Annah and her fellow GU choir student Nathaniel sang in a clinic choir and attended the ACDA choral reading session and a GU alumni reception, but Annah was most excited to watch Sylvia perform with the All-State Vocal Jazz Ensemble!
Jeremy got home from practice just in time to shower and change in about 5 minutes and drive us over to Peoria for the concert.
The All-State Jazz Band opened the concert, and was sooooo good!!
Meanwhile, the vocal jazzers were backstage getting ready to go on!
You can just tell they were having tons of fun!
The director of the ensemble was Mr. Drew Dahan, who was formerly the head of vocal jazz and music education at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is now teaching high school in the Chicago area, but while he was at IWU the Ridgeview vocal jazz ensemble had a couple/few opportunities to work with him, so since Sylvia was extra excited to work with him again!
Sylvia is in the back row, 4th from the right in this photo.
She wore a dress I wore in college for some recitals and I think she rocked it!
Here is a YouTube playlist of all of the songs the group sang. They did a fantastic job, and were such wonderful performers. I could tell from the moment Sylvia stepped on stage and I saw her shining bright the entire performance that she was having the time of her life!
At the end of the last song, Sylvia has a little feature. If you listen carefully, when the whole group starts singing "Freedom is a voice," she is the only one singing the riff they had all been singing before.
She says this is her favorite thing she's ever done in her life, and she loved the whole experience SO much!
