Our Songbirds

Yesterday morning our family walked up the street to Trinity High School so that Abigail and Suzanna could perform in the 2011 Trinity Junior High and Elementary Solo and Ensemble Music Festival.  Suzanna first performed in the festival two years ago (remember?); and when Abigail was old enough last year, she joined her (remember?).  Hillary is still one year away from being old enough (one must be at least in fifth grade), so it was just Abigail and Suzanna again this year.  And, again, we have audiovisual evidence of their participation!  Wanna hear?

All-State Suzanna

Last spring, when Suzanna registered for this year's classes at the junior high school (remember?), she wasn't able to fit chorus into her schedule; but the music teacher told her that she could sign up this fall for the honor choir, an extracurricular group that meets in the mornings.  She did that and is in that group (as well as in the jazz band, another extracurricular group) (as well as in the 7th-grade band, which meets daily as one of the courses that she's taking).  So she's as involved as possible in music at the school this year.

Well, another opportunity presented itself this fall: auditions for the all-state honor choirs selected to perform at the annual conference of the North Dakota American Choral Directors Association, which meets this year in Dickinson in February.  Suzanna (along with other students at the school) auditioned for the junior high/middle school honor choir, and her music teacher sent in her audition tape and application forms, and then they waited.

This morning Suzanna's music teacher e-mailed Susan and me to notify us that Suzanna has been selected to participate in the mixed honor choir!  In that choir, she is one of 25 sopranos chosen from schools across the state!  According to the list, she is the only student in the choir from Dickinson; except for four other students, the rest came from schools in Bismarck, Fargo, and Grand Forks.  We're as proud as can be, and so is Suzanna.

First Chair

Tonight we attended Suzanna's seventh-grade band concert at her junior high school!  Walking into the gymnasium and seeing it set up with chairs for the band on one side and risers for the choir on the other just took me right back to my own days as a music student at Tioga High School!  And it was very special to watch Suzanna walk out and take her place in the "first chair" position amongst the trombones, carrying the same trombone that I used to play.  She's quite a good trombonist (owing in part, I'm sure, to the private trombone lessons she takes from a trombone performance major at the university), and it was very enjoyable to hear the concert.  We were proud as could be!

The band teacher, Mr. Dykema, is great and gets good sound from both his choir and band students.

This song--"Woodland Odyssey" by Michael Sweeney--is Suzanna's favorite from among those that the band played tonight.

Back to School (and the Pool)

The school year has begun for everybody in our house.  I had start-of-the-year meetings to attend last week, and classes at the university started at the beginning of this week.  Susan had her teacher workshops Monday and Tuesday, and she started school today.  Our daughters got registered at their respective schools over the last couple weeks (remember?) and had open houses this past Monday and Tuesday in preparation for their own first day of school, which also was today.  We're getting back into our school-year routine . . . and I've got photos to prove it!