Chicago Day 5

I cannot believe it's Monday evening already!!! I am so proud of this orchestra - let me tell you a little bit about today.

This morning Chamber was down stairs for a very productive rehearsal and warmup, followed by a Combine orchestra rehearsal. We put back a little bit more hair, added some black socks to a few bare ankles, and headed out to the bus.

At Orchestra Hall, Chamber played first. We took our instruments out in a beautiful ballroom on the 2nd floor of the Orchestra Hall. The warmup room - Buntrock Hall - was beautiful too. Chamber took a picture under the huge Chicago Symphony sign. Then we played. Chamber did great in the Tchaikovsky - all the work we've done these past few months paid off! The October piece was slow and moving. Giannini rocked. We played well and felt well!

After lunch, Combined Orchestra got warmed up and played. Capriol Suite went really well - we incorporated some of the tips Dr. Dabcynski had given us yesterday. The piece we were most nervous about - Texians - went so well! We were all happily surprised. The closer - Marche Slav - was great. We felt so proud of ourselves when we were done.

The way this Gold Festival works, at the finale performance we hear the Honor band, Honor Orchestra, and 2 encore groups - one band, one orchestra. We had 10 students in the auditioned Honor group and they sounded great. The Encore groups are chosen from the highest scoring group. Unfortunately, neither of our groups were chosen to be the Encore orchestra group, but I was told that we were only a few points away from being so.

And, speaking of points, check this out - our scores were great! We were given very high scores - so high, that actually both Chamber and Combined had the same total score when added up: 288 out of 300. But, who's counting?! In a Heritage Gold festival there are no 'winners' or 'losers'. We all get the same beautiful take-home trophy (we got 2 because we had 2 groups) and the director's gift was a lovely Mollard baton in a wooden keepsake box. The music-making today, as a result of some very hard work, inspiration, and sweat, was incredible! I don't think there was a musician or parent there who didn't feel proud!

This evening we spent a good 2+ hours celebrating at the Greek Islands restaurant - the food was amazing! Ask the kids what their favorite was - the flaming cheese was pretty cool! I think I'll dream of the desserts for a long time...

The kids are all taped snugly in their rooms - we have a 7:45am packed-bag-down-to-the-lobby call tomorrow. One more day of sight seeing (Field Museum/Art Institute/Bloomingdales) and then we need to be at the airport by 3:30pm tomorrow. See you at PDX around 7:30pm tomorrow night.

What a trip!!!