The seventh day at the Chorale Workshop was another successful day of singing and making memories. In the morning, we went to the final day of morning mindsets before having another delicious breakfast together. Our usual sectional rehearsals went well as we worked on polishing the songs for our upcoming concert. For lunch, everyone was very excited to have a chicken mashed potato bowl meal! It was just what we needed to rejuvenate ourselves before… OPUS OLYMPICS!
The Opus Olympic games are a Chorale tradition where the opera compete against each other for a trophy. This year, the prize was the golden flamingo. Singers participated in games such as relay races running with spoons of water to fill a cup and passing index cards between each others’ feet. We then played games where we tried to guess names of songs from our repertoire from alternate, funny names that were given to them, as well as a game where we attempted to guess each staff persons’ eye from a sheet of pictures. We also built small structures out of marshmallows and toothpicks to see which opus could build the tallest one. It was a great break from working hard on our music to participate in a little friendly competition. We will find out tomorrow which opus won!
After the Opus Olympics, we moved on to our usual part rehearsals. Each voice part has been working extremely hard all week. Working separately in this way and then coming together as a full ensemble always proves to be extremely beneficial in our musical growth as a whole group.
We then advanced to a full rehearsal later in the afternoon. We used this rehearsal to work on memorization of some pieces. After singing for a bit, we headed over to Caldwell Hall (where our concert will be on Saturday, July 27th at 4 o’clock!) to practice how we will go through the concert. The staff interns with the help of a couple of former staff interns, now staff members, performed a hilarious little skit for us about how not to perform in a concert, then how to perform correctly. We are starting to feel the nerves about the performance, but we are eager to share the music we have been working so hard on all week with our friends and family.
After rehearsal, we came together for a special Chorale Circle where we go around the circle and each person expresses how they feel about the week or the Chorale in general. This is always an emotional time for many people as they open their hearts to the whole group. We can hardly believe that we have only been here for a week as we feel we have all known each other forever. We are all so proud and grateful to be able to call the Cardinal Chorale our second family and home.