January 11, the trip home STUDENT JOURNAL

Meredith Blankenheim, sophomore soprano

Wow! This has been one amazing and exciting whirlwind of a trip. I can see why Dr. ABC stressed that it was not a vacation: nine days, six cities, eight performances (ranging from our own concert repertoire to Anglican evensong), and twenty-three people that all had to bee on the same page to make it work. And yet, despite all the running around, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It is all that moving and changing that defines and is the backbone of a choir tour. But people do not just agree to join choir tours for the backbone, although we do like to perform. People go on choir tour for the heart.
I can truly say that I went on this trip for this group of people and these particular musical experiences it brought because I was lucky enough to go to England on tour with another choir in 2000. I got to know so many people, whether it was better than before or for the first time, and it is those bonds that keep people coming back for more. It was amazing to see the effects of getting to know each other better, especially with respect to how we made music together. I think Mr. Armstrong, who we were incredibly lucky to have on this trip, said it best at the farewell dinner when he said, “You are no longer a chamber choir. You are chamber singers.” Dr. ABC has a saying, although I do not know if she mentioned it on this trip, that we must have our hearts and minds in the same place to reach our full potential. I believe that finally happened on this tour and it felt great! We made some amazing music (including some beat box versions of Renaissance and Romantic choral music) and made special relationships that we will all remember. As I write this article on our plane back to the States, I am able to take a step back and notice this “chicken and the egg” type cycle that occurred through out the trip. The closer we became as a group, the better we became at making music and vice versa, yet I doubt anyone can say what came first.
I know Dr. ABC has constantly said that this trip would change us forever and I figured that she was right (because she usually is) but I wasn’t sure how. Choir tours have made for some great memories for me in the past, but I don’t think they had ever changed my outlook on life or anything to that degree before, so I was skeptical. Well, she was right, of course. It made me so much more appreciative, thankful, and aware. On previous choir tours, I was not financially responsible, so when I paid for a large portion of this tour myself, it immediately meant more to me. I instantly became thankful to my parents for previous experiences of which they footed the bill, the Berens who made this trip much more possible for us all, Dean Burney and Dr. Dougherty who let us use money from the STAR fund, four of our own students (Megan Gibson, Eric Carlson, Matt Podobinski, and Ryan Michel) who worked hard with Student Senate, and Dr. ABC who worked so hard to not only get enough money, but to do everything. I was also very thankful to the non-singers on the trip who provided an assured audience at each of our performances, even though they had heard it all before. Each non-singer brought something unique to the trip and without them it would not have been the same. I am especially grateful for Dr. Saylor’s presence because of his vast knowledge and his program-schlepping abilities. I became so much more aware culturally and of people. I felt like I became a sponge for people’s thoughts and feelings and I finally began relating those things to the big picture. I think isolated events like choir tours make it easier to do that because you can relate it to the tour before you relate it to life.
I do not think I can say “thank you” enough to everyone and everything that made this trip possible. I was going to list everything, but I think that would be longer than this entry because this trip affected so many things and is affected by so many things. I especially want to thank the twenty-two other members of chamber choir. You are the ones who impacted me the most and I will be forever grateful. I hope that you all had as wonderful a time as I did because you all deserved it. I think the only way to finish this entry is the way I started it. Wow!