Passion Park, voice elsewhere

Be Very Proud of Accomplishments

We all get intense feelings of pride when we, or our children who've we nurtured, excel at something they love.

Intense feelings matter. Great experiences and excelling occur with nurturing, effort and sense of ownership. Great experiences can kindle the sparks for newly discovered passions. Stringing passionate experience opportunity together by providing places for these activities, and soon we'll have a community of passionate people.

It takes a seed to move a mountain.

Enjoy the following account (and dialog) about a great experience with music posted to the internet from a fellow in Seattle. The story is posted so as to better illustrate and support the call for the creation of a new space, code name, Passion Park, an extension of the South Side Market House and South High School.

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Date:    Tue, 2 Mar 1999 02:10:06 EST
From:    Reginald Unterseher 
Subject: A Trip To Chicago

Chance, my 12-year-old, and I got back last night from our ACDA (American
Choral Director's Association) National Honor Boychoir Chicago adventure.  We
had the BEST time! It was just incredible.  We got there Wednesday afternoon
and the boys had a rehearsal that night.  The sound of 252 of the best boy
singers in the whole country (ages ranged from 8-15) was almost indescribable.
They were instantly all in tune, singing the right notes. The sound was so
beautiful that all I could do was just stand there with my jaw dropping,
almost not able to breathe. The most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

The boys really worked hard. I was there as chaperone with Chance and Mark,
another Consort Columbia Children's Chorus boy--they were the only boys from
the whole state of Washington. They were really glad that they had put in the
work ahead of time, memorizing their 8 pieces of rather advanced literature.
The vast majority of the boys had, and they were not pleased with the ones who
hadn't. They rehearsed 3 hours the first night, six hours each on the next two
days, went to a concert Thursday night, 3 hours on Saturday, and then the
concert Saturday night.  We had done a lot of preparation on how to deal with
that much rehearsal time without wrecking their voices, and by concert time
they felt good. We spent most non-rehearsal moments napping.

I mostly spent my time with the boys in their rehearsals, but also got to hear
a concert by the King's Singers, the Vancouver Chamber Singers, and Phillip
Brunelle's chorus in Orchestra Hall, several Russian choirs in another hall.
Between the time on the plane and the boy's nap times, I even had time to read
a book. I book that had nothing to do with music of any kind. Pretty much
heaven, for me.

We also had a blast in the few hours we had to play around.  The Sears Tower,
Chicago pizza, Michigan Avenue, the Navy Pier, Grant Park, Lake
Michigan--mostly on Saturday night after the concert and then all day Sunday.
Chicago is such a great place to visit, one of my absolute favorite places.

They were the subject of a half page article/photo in our local paper while
they were gone, which they were very excited about.  Even a teaser photo on
the front page.

The very best thing about the trip, though, was watching these boys. They
would look at each other, say "We are in CHICAGO!" and high five each other.
They had worked hard to prepare, spending many hours on their own as well as
with me, and were so glad to be there.  They behaved very professionally in
rehearsals. They were part of something special, did their part very well, had
really accomplished something, and they knew it. They will remember this their
whole lives, and so will I.

Reg, back in WA

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Suggestion

Have the article mounted and framed somehow and give it to your son as a gift, along with a card, of course, telling him how proud you are. (And you're obviously -- and justifiably -- nuts with pride over this guy and his friends.) He'll keep it forever!

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>what was the criteria in picking these voices?
>Doug
>

Every year, the American Choral Director's Association National Convention has
several Honor Choirs, typically of about 250 members each.  This year, it was
a Boychoir, a High School Choir, and a Women's Choir.  Directors who are ACDA
members get application forms, typically about 10 months in advance of the
convention.

The application consisted of a taped audition and a series of questions for
the choir director about their skills and habits.  For the tape, the boys had
to sing a solo and then sing a series of arpeggios that demonstrated their
range, voice quality, and how well they could sing in tune.  Different
directors have different criteria, but I only submitted boys who I felt had
the complete package--voice, sight reading and other musicianship issues,
experience, and behavior in concert and rehearsal.  I had two other boys in my
Children's Chorus that had the voice, but not the other skills, so I did not
submit them.

They chose 250 out of the over 500 applicants. I suspect that it was a
combination of things--not only the quality of audition and the strength of
the recommendation (which is hard to gauge if you do not know the director!),
but a desire to have many areas of the country represented.  In this choir,
boys came from 30 states.  The country's major boychoir organizations were all
well represented, but so were kids from smaller programs like mine.

Reg in WA

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Lucky Us

I was involved in many events like this as a kid and it's true - they *will* remember it forever.

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Input Welcomed

Other examples of Passion and Park Passions are going to welcome. Post in the comments.