CONGRATULATIONS to the VRHS Madmen, Women's Choir, Madrigal Consort, Concert Choir, Percussion Ensemble, Jazz Band and Concert Band for an incredible day of stunning performances.
Here is a recap of Friday and Saturday (we have a 45-minute bus ride so get ready for a long post!):
After rehearsals Friday morning, we made our way towards Chicago but before we got to Chi-Town, we stopped off for some food at a nearby shopping plaza. Panda Express, Jimmy John's (a much better version of Subway), Chipotle, a pizzeria (I don't know how much more pizza I can take) and a Super Target were all within walking distance of each other. The buses unloaded and we made our ways to our respective lunch destinations. I headed to Target with a group of kids and yes, we did eat food and it was awesome. I had a chance to take with some of the seniors about their plans next year and it's great to hear that they're going off to do amazing things (be sure to remember me when you're famous!). After lunch, some of the senior girls bought some things for a "spa" night including nail polish, gossip magazine, face peels and yes, a cucumber for their eyes.
After lunch, we headed to Chicago for a jam packed day of site seeing and exploring this incredible city. A little bit of grey skies and a light mist didn't stop us from enjoying the Wendella Architecture Boat Tour. Many of us braved the elements and sat outside to get a truly incredible experience of the architecturally-rich, Chicago. The tour guide was extremely knowledgable and many of these buildings simply took my breath away. The sheer magnitude of these buildings, the history behind them and their continued use was enlightening and made us appreciate the city more than we have already. Despite the cold and a little rain, I say that boat tour was a great success.
We loaded onto the buses and made our ways to the Hancock Tower. There was a mall next door with 8 floors and an abundance of different your stock department stores, mall food and some speciality stores including a store called the Pepper Zone, which specializes in the sales of hot sauce. Sten, one of our brave seniors decided it was a good idea to try the store's hottest sauce. "Mr. Lam, my mouth burned for a half-hour..." I also heard that after he tried this sauce, he immediately ran to the frozen yogurt shop (conveniently located next store) and started shoveling the cooling yogurt before he could even pay for the pound of dessert he already had in his mouth.
I was able to meet up with a high school friend and catch up with her doings in Chicago. She even gave me a short comic book called "Band Nerds" which was signed by both Chicago-based authors! At 6:30, students with bags in tow and coffees/jamba juice in hand, checked in and were all accounted for. "What are we even going to do at the top of this thing? I'm afraid of heights! We're not going to be able to see anything, it's so foggy." We were all a bit skeptical about our ascent up 94 floors since it had overcast the entire day and heavy cloud engulfed the Chicago skyline. We had paid for the tickets so 14 at a time, we made our way up the super-fast elevator to the 94th floor of the Hancock Tower. The floor was entirely surrounded by 1.5 inches of bullet proof glass and the view was incredible. It looked like we were floating in a cloud. More and more students made it to the top and incredibly, the cloud began to disappear. In 5 minutes time, the clouds had cleared enough so that we could see the entire city skyline and Lake Michigan. This was truly a moment from a fairy tale. The clouds lifted, the skyline beautiful and there was even a gelato bar on the floor (the kids definitely took part in this). Something that could have been dreary and disappointing immediately became a moment that many of these kids, and myself, that I was remember forever. Cameras/phones were immediately at the ready to capture these lifelong images and I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "THIS IS SO COOL!!!" There was a portion of the floor where there were no windows, just a mesh screen protecting you for the elements outside. Hancock Tower did not disappoint but with rumbling stomachs and aching feet, we bolted back down the elevator and headed to our buses.
We boarded and made our way to Gino's East Pizza. Many of the chaperones were apprehensive about the traffic and time because if we didn't arrive in our 15 minute window of time, our reservations would have been surrendered and there aren't many restaurants that can accomodate a group of nearly 140 on a moment's notice. Luckily, we made it to the restaurant with 4 minutes to spare and were immediately seated in the Chicago-favorite restaurant. The walls, tables, chairs and even the ceilings are adorned with signatures, phrases, anniversaries were all scribbled on its walls. Our pizzas were brought out and for those who have never experienced a Chicago deep dish pizza, many of the students and parents described it as an upside down pizza where the red sauce made up the majority of the delicious dish (think about taking a pie tin and filling it up with the contents of a pizza, but better!). Olives, sausage, pepperoni, cheese, pepsi, sprite and finally cookies were enjoyed by all. We left the restaurant with bellies full, spirits high but mixed with a bit of sleep deprivation.
As we made our ways back to the hotel, Miss Hilton called me to work out some logistics for the next day's itinerary. I mentioned to her we should probably double check on our breakfast reservation since we've run into so many scheduling snafus. At the moment, she thought it might not be necessary but we should check anyways. It was a good thing we did because when I went to the front desk to check for our 5:30AM breakfast, they informed us they had us down for 6:30...which did not work since we had to leave at 6:30 for the festival. Another curve ball, but with the help of the gracious hotel staff, they were able to call their chefs and servers and moved our breakfast back to the original time of 5:30AM...
We checked the kids in, told them the time for breakfast (always followed by groans, one student did shout with [sarcastic] excitement) and all of them were in bed pretty soon after.
Here's where the fun begins...
5:30AM Wake up. The students were pretty chipper considering all the events from the previous day and the early wake up call (I even heard a very interesting rendition of Dirait-on by one of the rooms across the hall from my 210 room, you know who you are!). We ate, we loaded and we were off!
We arrived at Plainfield East HS for the vocal portion of the competition and the school is massive. With a student body of 3,500 students, even the parking lot was enormous. Mateo said that the parking lot was probably the size of Valley, I think he's right. We loaded into the cafeteria where the Women's Ensemble began their vocal warmups immediately. The MadMen got their bowties and headed into the warmup room because they were the very first ensemble of the day's competition.
The MadMen were incredible and received some compliments but more importantly, constructive feedback! Next were Women's who all woo-ed us with their gentle but energetic voices. Madrigals came out and had a stellar performance despite a small mishap at the end of one song. And the Concert Choir just took it home. There's a moment in Oh Captain, My Captain where the entire choir sings an incredible chord on the word "exalt" and it gave me goosebumps and reminded me that it's musical moments like these that we live for. Such amazing performances by all choral groups and as soon as they were done, we rushed onto the bus and headed toward Plainfield North HS.
Plainfield North was a bigger school than Plainfield East but had similar layouts and building facade. The band hurried into the cafeteria where we were greeted with boxed lunches from Jimmy John's. The sandwiches were delicious but twenty minutes later, we were unloading the bus and warming up for the Concert Band performance. The band's performance is exactly how we wanted to perform. There was so much energy, passion and musicality in all of the pieces...I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear the entire time. The rush of adrenaline was unreal, everything locked in and the band sounded incredible. We held the last chord for Ride and the release and resonance of the last note was astounding. I am SO proud of all of the band kids and you have all met my expectations and blown them out of the water. The clinician that worked with us said we sounded great and had an incredible amount of energy that gave their performance a little some special.
Jazz Band had incredible performances despite the limited amount of rehearsals due to storms, or more storms, and holidays. They all brought an energy that I have never felt before and I couldn't have been happier. Just thinking back to these performances are giving me goosebumps, incredible job.
Percussion Ensemble was the last instrumental group and they wowed the crowd. As a new ensemble to Valley, these kids have done something that no other Valley student has done and they should be incredibly proud of their accomplishments. They had two strong performances of Rondo alla Turk and Run and got some constructive feedback from our clinician regarding cymbal technique (crash/suspended) and some mallet suggestions.
We packed our things onto the bus and thanked all of the coordinators from the festival. We were all exhausted, musically drained and hungry. The Heritage Festival had all of the performing members out for an evening of food, medieval games and awards at Medieval Times. We were seated in the red section where we ate chicken and ribs with our hands, watched a bunch of medieval games, cheered on our knight and our knight ended up winning the medieval tournament! The games and dinner came to a close and it was finally time for the awards.
Madmen - Gold Rating, 1st place
Women's Choir - Gold Rating, 1st place
Madrigal Consort - Gold Rating, 1st place
Concert Choir - Gold Rating, 1st place
Festival of Gold invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall
Concert Band - Silver Rating, 1st place
Jazz Band - Silver Rating, 1st place
Percussion Ensemble - Gold Rating, 1st place
There were many sweepstakes won by the choral group and one won by both the choral and band ensembles. I will post those later along with a description of each sweepstakes award.
We concluded the evening with a dance reception put on by Medieval Times and the kids had a great time of fist pumping, jumping and screaming. We went back to the hotel for some well-deserved rest before we packed our bags in the morning to start making our way back to CT.
Continue reading for our day at Six Flags!
KLAM
Here is a recap of Friday and Saturday (we have a 45-minute bus ride so get ready for a long post!):
After rehearsals Friday morning, we made our way towards Chicago but before we got to Chi-Town, we stopped off for some food at a nearby shopping plaza. Panda Express, Jimmy John's (a much better version of Subway), Chipotle, a pizzeria (I don't know how much more pizza I can take) and a Super Target were all within walking distance of each other. The buses unloaded and we made our ways to our respective lunch destinations. I headed to Target with a group of kids and yes, we did eat food and it was awesome. I had a chance to take with some of the seniors about their plans next year and it's great to hear that they're going off to do amazing things (be sure to remember me when you're famous!). After lunch, some of the senior girls bought some things for a "spa" night including nail polish, gossip magazine, face peels and yes, a cucumber for their eyes.
After lunch, we headed to Chicago for a jam packed day of site seeing and exploring this incredible city. A little bit of grey skies and a light mist didn't stop us from enjoying the Wendella Architecture Boat Tour. Many of us braved the elements and sat outside to get a truly incredible experience of the architecturally-rich, Chicago. The tour guide was extremely knowledgable and many of these buildings simply took my breath away. The sheer magnitude of these buildings, the history behind them and their continued use was enlightening and made us appreciate the city more than we have already. Despite the cold and a little rain, I say that boat tour was a great success.
We loaded onto the buses and made our ways to the Hancock Tower. There was a mall next door with 8 floors and an abundance of different your stock department stores, mall food and some speciality stores including a store called the Pepper Zone, which specializes in the sales of hot sauce. Sten, one of our brave seniors decided it was a good idea to try the store's hottest sauce. "Mr. Lam, my mouth burned for a half-hour..." I also heard that after he tried this sauce, he immediately ran to the frozen yogurt shop (conveniently located next store) and started shoveling the cooling yogurt before he could even pay for the pound of dessert he already had in his mouth.
I was able to meet up with a high school friend and catch up with her doings in Chicago. She even gave me a short comic book called "Band Nerds" which was signed by both Chicago-based authors! At 6:30, students with bags in tow and coffees/jamba juice in hand, checked in and were all accounted for. "What are we even going to do at the top of this thing? I'm afraid of heights! We're not going to be able to see anything, it's so foggy." We were all a bit skeptical about our ascent up 94 floors since it had overcast the entire day and heavy cloud engulfed the Chicago skyline. We had paid for the tickets so 14 at a time, we made our way up the super-fast elevator to the 94th floor of the Hancock Tower. The floor was entirely surrounded by 1.5 inches of bullet proof glass and the view was incredible. It looked like we were floating in a cloud. More and more students made it to the top and incredibly, the cloud began to disappear. In 5 minutes time, the clouds had cleared enough so that we could see the entire city skyline and Lake Michigan. This was truly a moment from a fairy tale. The clouds lifted, the skyline beautiful and there was even a gelato bar on the floor (the kids definitely took part in this). Something that could have been dreary and disappointing immediately became a moment that many of these kids, and myself, that I was remember forever. Cameras/phones were immediately at the ready to capture these lifelong images and I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "THIS IS SO COOL!!!" There was a portion of the floor where there were no windows, just a mesh screen protecting you for the elements outside. Hancock Tower did not disappoint but with rumbling stomachs and aching feet, we bolted back down the elevator and headed to our buses.
We boarded and made our way to Gino's East Pizza. Many of the chaperones were apprehensive about the traffic and time because if we didn't arrive in our 15 minute window of time, our reservations would have been surrendered and there aren't many restaurants that can accomodate a group of nearly 140 on a moment's notice. Luckily, we made it to the restaurant with 4 minutes to spare and were immediately seated in the Chicago-favorite restaurant. The walls, tables, chairs and even the ceilings are adorned with signatures, phrases, anniversaries were all scribbled on its walls. Our pizzas were brought out and for those who have never experienced a Chicago deep dish pizza, many of the students and parents described it as an upside down pizza where the red sauce made up the majority of the delicious dish (think about taking a pie tin and filling it up with the contents of a pizza, but better!). Olives, sausage, pepperoni, cheese, pepsi, sprite and finally cookies were enjoyed by all. We left the restaurant with bellies full, spirits high but mixed with a bit of sleep deprivation.
As we made our ways back to the hotel, Miss Hilton called me to work out some logistics for the next day's itinerary. I mentioned to her we should probably double check on our breakfast reservation since we've run into so many scheduling snafus. At the moment, she thought it might not be necessary but we should check anyways. It was a good thing we did because when I went to the front desk to check for our 5:30AM breakfast, they informed us they had us down for 6:30...which did not work since we had to leave at 6:30 for the festival. Another curve ball, but with the help of the gracious hotel staff, they were able to call their chefs and servers and moved our breakfast back to the original time of 5:30AM...
We checked the kids in, told them the time for breakfast (always followed by groans, one student did shout with [sarcastic] excitement) and all of them were in bed pretty soon after.
Here's where the fun begins...
5:30AM Wake up. The students were pretty chipper considering all the events from the previous day and the early wake up call (I even heard a very interesting rendition of Dirait-on by one of the rooms across the hall from my 210 room, you know who you are!). We ate, we loaded and we were off!
We arrived at Plainfield East HS for the vocal portion of the competition and the school is massive. With a student body of 3,500 students, even the parking lot was enormous. Mateo said that the parking lot was probably the size of Valley, I think he's right. We loaded into the cafeteria where the Women's Ensemble began their vocal warmups immediately. The MadMen got their bowties and headed into the warmup room because they were the very first ensemble of the day's competition.
The MadMen were incredible and received some compliments but more importantly, constructive feedback! Next were Women's who all woo-ed us with their gentle but energetic voices. Madrigals came out and had a stellar performance despite a small mishap at the end of one song. And the Concert Choir just took it home. There's a moment in Oh Captain, My Captain where the entire choir sings an incredible chord on the word "exalt" and it gave me goosebumps and reminded me that it's musical moments like these that we live for. Such amazing performances by all choral groups and as soon as they were done, we rushed onto the bus and headed toward Plainfield North HS.
Plainfield North was a bigger school than Plainfield East but had similar layouts and building facade. The band hurried into the cafeteria where we were greeted with boxed lunches from Jimmy John's. The sandwiches were delicious but twenty minutes later, we were unloading the bus and warming up for the Concert Band performance. The band's performance is exactly how we wanted to perform. There was so much energy, passion and musicality in all of the pieces...I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear the entire time. The rush of adrenaline was unreal, everything locked in and the band sounded incredible. We held the last chord for Ride and the release and resonance of the last note was astounding. I am SO proud of all of the band kids and you have all met my expectations and blown them out of the water. The clinician that worked with us said we sounded great and had an incredible amount of energy that gave their performance a little some special.
Jazz Band had incredible performances despite the limited amount of rehearsals due to storms, or more storms, and holidays. They all brought an energy that I have never felt before and I couldn't have been happier. Just thinking back to these performances are giving me goosebumps, incredible job.
Percussion Ensemble was the last instrumental group and they wowed the crowd. As a new ensemble to Valley, these kids have done something that no other Valley student has done and they should be incredibly proud of their accomplishments. They had two strong performances of Rondo alla Turk and Run and got some constructive feedback from our clinician regarding cymbal technique (crash/suspended) and some mallet suggestions.
We packed our things onto the bus and thanked all of the coordinators from the festival. We were all exhausted, musically drained and hungry. The Heritage Festival had all of the performing members out for an evening of food, medieval games and awards at Medieval Times. We were seated in the red section where we ate chicken and ribs with our hands, watched a bunch of medieval games, cheered on our knight and our knight ended up winning the medieval tournament! The games and dinner came to a close and it was finally time for the awards.
Madmen - Gold Rating, 1st place
Women's Choir - Gold Rating, 1st place
Madrigal Consort - Gold Rating, 1st place
Concert Choir - Gold Rating, 1st place
Festival of Gold invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall
Concert Band - Silver Rating, 1st place
Jazz Band - Silver Rating, 1st place
Percussion Ensemble - Gold Rating, 1st place
There were many sweepstakes won by the choral group and one won by both the choral and band ensembles. I will post those later along with a description of each sweepstakes award.
We concluded the evening with a dance reception put on by Medieval Times and the kids had a great time of fist pumping, jumping and screaming. We went back to the hotel for some well-deserved rest before we packed our bags in the morning to start making our way back to CT.
Continue reading for our day at Six Flags!
KLAM