Chicago Day 4

Sunday in Chicago brought weather - during our clinic with Dr. Dabcynski we heard lots of thunder. In fact, one of his sentences was perfectly punctuated with a loud clap of thunder. It rained a lot mid day - glad we weren't out sight seeing!

We started the day with rehearsal for Honors and sectionals for everyone else. The motivation being that we wanted to play impressively for our clinician. At 10:30 we had an hour and a half with Dr. Andy Dabcynski. He was great - the parent chaperons were very impressed with what he had to say, as were the students! He's a very dynamic and impressive person. He had many great musical ideas for us and was very complimentary to our group. The favorite thing he said to our Chamber group was how impressed he was with how they had their own unique, and musically successful, sound. Both the combined and chamber greatly benefited from the time with him. Kudos to Heritage Festival for providing us with such a quality clinician!

This afternoon students had some down time after a delicious lunch at the Holy Cow (homage to Harry Caray - famous Chicago ball announcer). Many kids went to the very big mall across the street - Yorktown Mall. Wow - what a mall! Some students went swimming (I hear there was an active poker game pool side). Parent chaperons were busy keeping track of everyone. At 5:15 everyone was on time for Combined Orchestra rehearsal. We had a very productive rehearsal - inspired by the clinic earlier in the day.

Tonight we had a banquet dinner with about 1000 other students in the ballroom at the hotel. Tonight, we look forward to getting some sleep in preparation for our big day tomorrow.

I will say, for the benefit of parents reading this blog, that I am so proud of our West students, both for the fact that they on the whole are so well behaved (believe me, we've seen groups at this hotel not well behaved) and for appreciating the musical and educational components of this trip - thanks to Trip Czar Mark Lowen and his expert chaperon team. We have lost 4 phones and one wallet - but all have been found. We've had 3 sick students, and all seem to have recovered. We have all adhered to dress codes, meeting and rehearsal times. It's been a real pleasure to be on this trip with this group of kids!

Tomorrow - we play on stage at Orchestra Hall... we're so excited!

Quote of the day:
1. These legs were not made for walking!