British Masterworks Concert

There are somethings high school singers can only dream about. Having the opportunity to work with a world renowned musician is one of those dreams. Guess what? I got to live it. For several months my Encore choir has been working on some intensely difficult songs (including the forty-something page Gloria!). Then, this past weekend, we got to have it all come together. My choir, along with the top choirs from other schools in the distric met at American Fork High School after school this past friday to meet our conductor. The famous Craig Jessop. Okay, so I realize you non-music fanatics probably won't recognize his name. He conducted the mormon tabernacle choir. Ring any bells? Anyway, he's awesome.
We worked on our three (I guess technically six, Gloria has three parts) songs from 3:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Stopping only once for a dinner break. I was amazed at how much improvement our choir of about 200 members was able to make in only a short amount of time. The knowledge and love Dr. Jessop had for music was contageous. Even the advice that only required changing one thing about how we sang made an audible difference. It was so incredible to be part of a choir who wanted to be there and wanted to sound better than anything.
Well, I finally got to go home with no voice. Then, after a night of "rest" and absolutely no speaking allowed I was up again at 7:30 the next morning. We met at A.F. Highschool again at about 9:30. We then sang until our break at noon. By this time, we were sounding pretty good. Ok, that's a lie. We sounded REALLY good. But once again, my voice was really suffering. (Didn't help that I had a monster cough. *grr*)
Molly and I decided to go chill at the mall for three hours instead of heading home. During our break Dr. Jessop was working with the orchestra, which consisted of and organ professor and the BYU brass orchestra. Molly and I had fun window-shopping, losing her jacket, finding her jacket, and eating pretzels and really good lemonade. We decided we'd better head to Provo because we really had no idea where the tabernacle was. Luckily, we found it on time and had about 2 hours to rehearse with the band. Everything was really coming together. I had no idea a high school choir could sound so (my dad hates this word) AMAZING! I mean, we sounded like the motab for crying out loud! Then we had a dinner break, which we didn't use for dinner. Instead, Molly and I went to her sister's dorm to change clothes, then we met up with Thomas, Stephen, Nate, and Brad at some random store they'd found.
It was almost concert time. We all piled into my car and drove back to the tabernacle. I have to admit I was a little disappointed at the audience turn-out. There really weren't a whole lot of people there. And I'm telling you, this concert should have cost money it was so good! With a bit of last minute instruction and instrument tunage, our songs began.
This was truly the greatest concert I have ever been a part of. I just got chills all over during the songs (especially when the boys sang ;) ). I deffinitely have a greater appreciation for music and especially for dedication. There wasn't one person who decided that they didn't want to give their all, that mediocracy was good enough for them. Everyone wanted to impress the audience, to make them go, "wait a second, who's this choir and how old are they?" and I really think we did!