Written by: Brody R.
Greetings from Day 4 of the Cardinal Chorale Workshop. It is yours truly, Brody Rodriguez. I am so very happy that you’ve taken time out of your day to join me for this wonderful blogging experience. Today was another absolutely fantastic day here at workshop. I hope you are so very ready to embark on this journey with me.
The day began as normal. I woke up a little later than I expected unfortunately, but it was quite nice to get some extra sleep. It’s about halfway through the workshop week when a lot of people begin to fall victim to the “sleepiness syndrome.” Many of us are tired and our voices are beginning to wear down a little bit, but it sure doesn’t seem like it with the way we’re sounding in rehearsals. For our opus breakfast, everyday we are able to create a fun challenge for the day. Today’s challenge was a weird one, but very enjoyable and definitely boosted the spirits a little bit especially after the events of today. I will touch on that a little bit later though… other than that this morning was pretty chill.
You could definitely tell that much of our repertoire is making fantastic progress at this point in the workshop. A lot of the music that absolutely terrified me the first day is becoming a cakewalk and we are able to be more focused on correcting the smaller details rather than the big picture, which is a great problem to have! One of the songs that I am having an blast with is “Lord, Listen to the Children Praying.” I am so excited to premiere it this weekend because it’s got some surprises within it and I love playing with the audience’s feelings a little bit. I am very proud of how far we have all come together to sing this repertoire that is so new to many of us. It’s part of the magic here at workshop!
Something that I am also very excited about is the solo auditions that are being held. There are a lot of songs this year that have solo opportunities for all voice parts. Most of them don’t entirely dominate a whole piece too, so it allows certain individuals to get a little feature through our repertoire this year which is super neat. I plan on auditioning for most of the solos just to expand my own musical stock and get an idea for how I feel for the music and interpretation. The really neat thing about auditioning for solos here is the amount of guidance that is offered by the staff. None of them are praying on your downfall, so they are always offering assistance to your audition to make sure you are giving your absolute best shot at the piece!
A little fun fact about the day: we were held in a basement for about an hour! (hence the title of the blog) Although this sounds bad, trust me, it was for a good reason. So… basically… we were under tornado warning for about an hour because the storm was passing over (niche reference). This storm happened to trap us in the basement of Muskingum’s Walter Hall for about a half hour until we were so graciously released… until we were immediately told to return to the basement for another half hour. I took the time between our holdings to grab my iPad so I was able to work on my homework I need to complete this week for my summer classes. It worked out perfectly and went quite swimmingly (water reference). The tornado warning ended up making us skip our seminar session was I was very sad about, but the time that was missed will be made up on another day, so it is a-okay.
After this whole fiasco, we had a full group rehearsal and this is where I can talk a wee bit about what I was mentioning about our funny challenge that we created at breakfast. The plan was to play a little prank on Mr. Snyder and on the first downbeat of “The Lord is my Light” we were all going to get the whole chorale to sing “Rain Rain Go Away”, but after already running late into our day, and after a brief discussion with some of the staff we decided to “come again another day” except we were ready to attack there soon after. After getting through our rehearsal and things starting to look up again, and with the sky being completely clear of clouds or any storm, we decided to switch up our initial plan a little bit. We landed on singing a very nice gospel rendition of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” inspired by “Sister Act 2” (the movie feature we had the night before). I believe Mr. Snyder and the rest of the Chorale very much enjoyed the prank, and it boosted all of the spirits. I think that was probably one of the best rehearsals we have had this week so far.
In between those rehearsals we had dinner in which I would like to do a little side note: I had chili fries. They were pretty good! I would definitely give them an 8/10. The Muskingum dining staff are beyond great and I love them so dearly for feeding us such fantastic food. We love you Muskie Dining!
We started a tradition ast year where a singer has to eat two corn dogs. This year, it was Kaleb! Cnsuming two corn dogs during workshop will hopefully be something that’ll continue to pass on, but I fear that the “today I will eat two corn dogs” meme is too niche for the common person.
The concert we had for the night was absolutely fantabulous. We were serenaded this evening by “The Gem Tones.” They were a small treble voice ensemble formed in 2023 at a small Mamma Mia gig that blossomed into this “choral therapy” pop a cappella group which sounded amazing! Many of the members are also alumni of the Chorale which is another really neat addition and why they chose to come perform for us. They had a mix of traditional choral pieces, 40-50s jazz, and modern pop songs all put into one very engaging program. I am a big fan of the pop a cappella scene and even being a member of the pop a cappella group Ten40! at BGSU. Being a Bass, I had a good ear for the alto of the ensemble, and she was a perfect foundation for the rest of the group. Overall, I believe the entire set was a great experience for all of us to have. Even if, as per usual, Matt Downing just needed to have his moment in the spotlight and stole the show for the back half of “Made You Look” by Meghan Trainor.
The night ended a bit earlier which gave me more time to write this blog post without going too far into the depths of the night. As I settle in for the night, I reflect on not only how far the Chorale has come this week, but how far it has come within the last couple of years. I have felt that the Chorale has been one of the biggest factors of why I enjoy creating music so much. It allows me to perform and be myself on stage, which every choral experience might not allow me to do. This group has been able to increase my musical awareness and stock by a thousandfold. Applying all that I have learned from this group into my everyday life and vice versa is what being in this group is about. I am so grateful to be in such a small part of the bigger impact that this Chorale has made on thousands of lives outside of mine.
I believe that my yap session is to come to an end, but fear not, I will return very soon. Thank you for your amazing support. I am having a fantastic time being able to document this week and can’t wait to share with you how much work we have been putting into this week!
From the comfort of my cave-of-a-room,
Brody Rodriguez