Papillion, Nebraska
Feb 13th, 2009 by small
Saturday, February 28 – 7 p.m.
Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church
324 South Jackson Street
Papillion, NE 68046
Ph. 402 339-3308
Click link below for photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35355241@N05/sets/72157623416569143/show/with/4400974089/
The concert at St. Paul’s was absolutely outstanding. The passion on the choir’s faces said it all. Everyone of the members was full of enthusiasm, and the quality of the performance reflected this passion. We were so privileged to have Corrinne and Jamie stay with us. Thank you again for gracing our church with your fantastic music, and please come again. Just like the 2007 concert, the choir made its mark again. Thank you to all for your superb effort in producing beautiful and inspiring music for our church community.
John and Linda Seyfarth
This is my first blog entry, ever, and so I hope that it turns out as well as it will develop in my head. So, I suppose I should start with the basics. My name is Andrew Gerodias, a junior at Morningside College and a tenor in the choir. We have started our local tour that will be going on for a week and have six major concerts.
It is day one and, although it has been an early morning, the choir seems ready to get on the road. The beginning of tour is always a curious case when it comes down to emotions. For myself, I am ready to get out and perform for an audience, but I also dread the work involved. Many may think that a choir tour is just us going around and singing at churches, after all it is just singing. Choir tour, though, is a constant test of endurance and concentration mixed with the trials of living closely with others. Endurance is needed because of the loading and unloading of the bus, as well as each of the members trying to keep their voice for the many concerts to come. The voice issue is also a balancing act that needs to be perfected as you can, obviously, talk too much on tour or too little. As we get close to our destination, we are asked to wake each other up and have small conversations to get our vocal chords warmed up. We are also asked to refrain from sugary foods and substances, which can be harder for some than others (myself included as I am a caffeine addict). Our concentration is also an important part of the tour as well. The most obvious example of this is the many songs that we must have memorized for the concerts that we put on. To put this into perspective we have ten songs (plus another 4 or 5 for the Jazz choir) that we must have engrained in our head. Memorization consists of learning the words, volume, and speed among many other things. Keeping all of this straight is difficult, but we have learned quite well. And finally the choir as a group becomes a very tight nit group, but of course we all have our times that we need some distance. I will try my best to avoid those times because, let’s be honest, we all have too much drama in our own lives to read about the drama of others. But, back to the first day of tour!
We arrived in Papillion, NE relatively early and after quite a quick bus ride. This is a welcomed surprise in this case because last year’s tour consisted of very long bus rides which can be quite annoying. We arrived in Papillion at our destination and the bus sprung to life. We unloaded the robes, got our essentials, and started to get ready for the morning service. It was a gorgeous site with wonderful acoustics and a great congregation. The service was quick and we sang three songs, and the jazz choir sang one. We finished the service and had a quick lunch at the church. They had huge party subs for us. We left there with plenty of time before getting ready for the night’s concert. The choir had its choice of going to the Old Market in Omaha or the local Art Museum. I chose the Old Market, as did a large number of the choir members. Our director, Tim Watson, stated that this trip is going to be a tour of shopping. We begin with Old Market, Jordan Creek mid week, and then Mall of America at the end of the week. There was a couple of important stops for some choir members; coffee and ice cream! On a side note, I was able to meet up with a good friend from high school who I had not seen in a while. Two birds with one stone, right? Anyway, after spending our free time in downtown Omaha on a beautiful day we headed back to the church to prepare for our performance that night. We arrived, unloaded the bus, put up the risers and sound system, and finished up with a warm up. Dinner was a homemade meal (spectacular sloppy joes). The first concert had a terrific crowd and the choir was full of energy. We sang a great concert and it seemed pretty obvious that we were ready to take this tour to the edge and perform to our full potential.
For those who don’t know, all of the performers are take in to the houses of people that compose the congregation of the church. We only have one hotel night, other than that we live in with different families that we are paired up with over tour. Today my family was a great couple, Lyn and Danny, who were “happy to have four kids back in house.” We were served snacks, drinks, and shown around the house before we all went to either do work or to lay down for some much needed rest. Day two of the tour starts tomorrow and who knows what is to come.
Our first day of tour started bright and early Sunday morning; well, not so much bright, but very early. We left at 6:30 in the morning and started our trek across the state line to Nebraska. We sang at the second church service as a little preview for that night’s concert. The pastor was a Morningside grad and seemed very proud to have us there. After the service we were treated to a Subway lunch at the church. We had a long time to wait between the third service and setup so we were left up to our own creativity for entertainment. I was talking with people at one table when… zoom! … an unidentified flying object sailed past us. A war of paper airplanes had begun! When the battle was over and done with and setup was complete it was time for our afternoon adventure. The choices were to go to the Joslyn museum or to stroll through the Old Market in Omaha. On such a gorgeous afternoon, I chose to spend it walking on cobblestone streets and exploring through thrift shops. Even though the temperature was in the thirties, it was so nice compared to what it has been that we walked around in light jackets or no coats at all! Our first stop: caffeine! We all decided to get a little pick-me-up, and thanks to Gene Ambroson, that was possible for us all. Next, our little escapade took us to one of the funniest book stores in the market. We found all sorts of treasures including a Mozart action figure! Nolley Vereen had a book of life pondering questions such as, “Would you rather… share your bedroom with twenty – five black widow spiders or three landmines?” However, all good things must get better, so we headed back to the church to get ready for our first concert. The evening came with great excitement and anticipation. Jordan Widholm gave his senior speech tonight which taught us all valuable life lessons. The concert came and went with no one passing out, passing sickness, or passing gas. The choir did an excellent job and it was only our first performance! It will be fun to see how much we’ll progress throughout tour. The Papillion performance was a marvelous way to kick off our tour. I think our tour video says it best so in the words of Fango Scheffer, “Today was fun today. Yeah, it was.”
So today was officially the first day of Morningside’s 2010 Choir Tour. We are here in Papillion, Nebraska, which was our first stop of the tour. The church that we performed at was very inviting all the people there were super nice. They allowed the choir to perform for there ten o’clock church service, which was exciting, and we got to meet some of the people afterwards. After lunch the choir had a little free time so we had the choice to go to the Old Market or Joslyn Art Museum. Some of us decided to go to the Old Market. We hit up an old record store, which I have never been to a record store before. It had a great atmosphere and it was fun to just walk around and look at all the kinds of music I didn’t know about. Afterwards we went below the record store to this little shop it was a gothic Halloween outfit shop. My favorite part of the shop was when Katie Rasmussen and I tried on hats made from Alpaca fur. We were just excited that it was Alpaca cause you don’t usually see that everywhere. We explored for a while, took many pictures, and overall just had fun. Eventually we had to meet back up at the bus to head back for the performance that was taking place. After warming up we were ready to perform. The performance was great; it’s such a wonderful feeling to be a part of something like this choir. We sang our hearts out and even though some of the members were sick the concert was excellent. The audience we performed for was very grateful we had come to sing and they loved every minute of it!
Another year, another choir tour! YAHOO! As a sophomore in choir, I’m excited to be on tour again with a familiar routine and traveling with great people, as always. After leaving Sioux City around 7am (which seems to be way too early for everyone), we went to Papillion for morning mass. The church is exquisite! The sanctuary had great acoustics and very modern technology with very caring members. I would like to add that the girls changed in the Boy Scouts room and the boys changed in the Drama Team room. Fun, eh? After morning service, we had some time to kill and opted to go to Omaha. Most of the choir went walking around the Old Market to experience the beautiful weather, while a few of us went to the Joslyn Art Museum (which is the route I chose). It’s a beautiful museum if you get a chance to go there! We headed back to Papillion for our concert that night and had a wonderful dinner before our first concert of the week.
After the concert (which for our first concert went very well!), we tore down set and met up with our host families. After our long 5-minute drive, oranges rolling down the driveway, and our not-so-tall shower, we settled into our host home. Our host mom is quiet, but a sweetheart! Tonight as the awards were being passed out, the Morningside Hymn was being sung, our host parents anxiously awaited for us, and our first senior speech was given, I fell in love with tour all over again. It’s going to be an excellent adventure this year, even if we are closer to home.