Random Photos from the Tour

So where were we?

It's been a busy week of poor internet connections, hours on the bus, and not much time to update this blog. Sorry 'bout that!

The photo below is a singer's-eye-view of the crowd at the Pittsburgh Hofbrauhaus, where the guys were encouraged to "sing for their supper."

The trip to Ohio was fraught with peril because we actually had to cross about 20 miles of West Virginia's northern panhandle. So technically, we didn't completely avoid WV on the trip. But I encouraged the guys to lift their feet off the floor of the bus to symbolically avoid setting food in the Mountain State. :-) BTW, the only reason the tour avoided WV is that we didn't have a concert there and our route circumnavigated the outline of the state. We have nothing against WV.

We arrived at Oxford Presbyterian Church for our joint performance with the Miami of Ohio Glee Club (above). After our own warm-up, we combined to sing Franz Biebl's iconic Ave Maria. Because space was limited on the altar area, we put the semi-chorus in the back balcony and the Miami Glee Club stood all along the walls down both side aisles. So the audience got to experience the piece in live Sensurround®. The folks at the church fed us well, we had a great audience, and the guys got to stay with Miami GC guys that night. Who knew that other glee clubs have Clubhouses too? After and eventful evening of what I will euphemistically call "shenanigans," the guys made it to the bus in the morning and we set out for Louisville. Thanks to the Miami GC and their conductor, Jeremy Jones, for hosting us for a memorable concert and social experience!

Everyone was excited to get to Louisville because it's the home town of Benjamin Miles Hillbrook Cunningham (Anagram), one of our Glee Club guys. His mother, Anita Barbee, worked tirelessly to host us for our performances there, and we had a great time! When we arrived, we went straight to duPont Manual High School's Youth Performing Arts School, where we traded mini-performances with their mixed choir before they sang in their District Festival on Thursday. I'd heard their men's chorus at the IMC Seminar last week and asked if we could stop by to see one of his groups. They sang beautifully and we had some time to answer some questions and then head out for the evening's concert venue.

You know you're in the Bible Belt when...Well, at least someone (not a Glee Club guy!) climbed up and annotated the billboard before we got there.

Our evening venue was Highland Baptist Church, and though you can't really tell it from the photo, it was a beautiful and acoustically generous space. The audience was filled with friends and relatives of Anagram, making him overexcited (as usual). :-) Before the performance, Anita filled us full of KY BBQ and sweet tea, so the guys were well-fortified for a fine performance. They stayed with host families (friends of the family) and tried hard not to break things before they got back on the bus in the morning to head for our performance at The Collegiate School. We were greeted by Anita, who had arranged a breakfast spread for us while we waited to perform for an Upper School Assembly.

The students at the Assembly were very attentive and it was nice to meet so many of Anagram's former teachers. They told good stories! After the assembly, Anita had lunch waiting for us before we hit the road for our free night in Nashville. 

Upon our arrival, we had one task to perform before our free night. Lloyd Stamy, our alumnus in Pittsburgh, has a daughter attending Vanderbilt. Not only is he disappointed that she didn't choose to attend UVa, but she finds ways to needle him, like defacing his beloved UVa garb. 

So Lloyd asked us to go to her dorm, where her roommate would bring her out on a balcony to find us standing below, where we would sing Virginia songs to drive the point home that she made the wrong college choice. The plan came off perfectly, though she seemed sort of nonplussed by the whole thing. Her gaggle of friends found it amusing, and we attracted a small crowd by singing Virginia songs on a quad at Vanderbilt. There's no such thing as bad publicity!

After returning to our hotel, the guys spread out in various groups for dining and entertainment. Many of them were on time for the bus departure the next morning.

We headed for the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for a rehearsal exchange with the UT Men's Chorale and their conductor, Gene Peterson.

We sang a few songs for each other and the UVa guys shared some insights about how a 143-year-old college men's chorus works for the UT guys, whose group is only six years old. We then all got together and sang the Biebl Ave Maria. Their beautiful recital hall is part of a new music building that just opened last fall. Jealous!

The UT guys hosted us for pizza in their fantastic rehearsal room before we headed outside to wait for our bus. We discovered a large, painted rock that seems to serve the same purpose as UVa's Beta Bridge. Guys climbed all over it. No one fell off.

We headed to our hotel and upon arrival, discovered that it had one of those enclosed pool/water park play areas. Some of us had to go to the Dollar Store to find bathing suits, but once appropriately attired, many of the guys spent a few hours frolicking in the pool, hot tub, and giant water slide thing. I'll upload some pics when someone sends me some. That night, some of the guys played Laser Tag, some went "clubbing" (not much of a scene in Knoxville), and some stayed in to rest up for the final leg of the trip.

In the morning, we very nearly departed on time for our journey to Roanoke, where we were meeting up with alumnus John Wood who had arranged for us to appear on the concert series at his church. We've been part of Music on the Corner at St. John's Episcopal before, and we looked forward to a beautiful church and a good audience. We were also going to meet up with the Oriana Singers from Roanoke College and their conductor, Jeff Sandborg, to share the program and a combined number. After rehearsing separately and together (we'd learned our combined number on the fly, hoping we could manage by the end of the tour), folks at the church treated us to a delicious pre-concert dinner before we took the "stage" for our final concert of the tour.

As expected, the audience was very enthusiastic, and both groups sounded great. Our combined number was a hit, and, for the first time on tour, the guys hurried to get on the bus for the quick trip back to Charlottesville. During our final ride of the tour, guys shared stories of their most memorable moments from the trip, and by the time we arrived at the Scott Stadium parking lot at around 10:00, everyone was ready to get off the bus one last time, figure out who belonged to the various lost items recovered on the bus, and head to their own beds for a good night's sleep.

One of the nicest parts of tour was seeing parents at every stop we made. Some journeyed long distances to see us, and one mom even came to two different performances. Special thanks for food on the bus from Jordan Stillman's mom and Nick Williams's grandmother, along with all the other treats that found their way onto the bus as we traversed the wilds of NJ, PA, OH, KY, TN and back to Virginia. Special thanks to Tom, our unflappable bus driver, our officers (both current and new), our tour manager, Matt Doyle), our General Manager, Jessica Wiseman, and to everyone else who worked so hard to make the tour a success.

A busy weekend!

Tour began with our departure from Charlottesville (too) early last Friday morning. We drove to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ to participate in the Centennial Seminar of Intercollegiate Men's Choruses, a national support organization for male choirs of all ages and levels. After our arrival, we ran through our set, then attended a rare performance of Stravinsky's Opera-Oratorio Oedipus Rex, performed by the Rutgers Glee Club and Symphony. Classicists in Club were especially fascinated by the gruesome tale.

We shared the evening performance with the Glee Clubs from the University of Illinois and Miami of Ohio. It was great to hear other, similar groups perform, and the audience of other singers, conductors, and fans, was very enthusiastic.

The next morning, it was back on the bus for the long drive to Pittsburgh, PA, where we were greeted by Glee Club super-alumnus Lloyd Stamy, who took the guys to the famous Hofbrauhaus for dinner and then on a tour of the city. The next day, we headed to Lloyd's church, the architecturally splendid Shadyside Presbyterian, for an afternoon performance on their concert series. One of the guys discovered he'd left his tuxedo in the hotel in NJ, so we were grateful that Shadyside's Music Director, Mark Anderson, ran home and got his for our costume-less student to borrow. The guys sang well in the acoustically generous space. The audience was warm and supportive, and it was great to see another Glee Club alum, Greg Chafuen, who drove all the way from Notre Dame, where he's attending law school. There was a fantastic catered reception in their Fellowship Hall, and then we were on our own for the evening. Many of us wound up at Pennsylvania's own Quaker Steak and Lube, renowned for their wings and other food that'll kill you if you eat enough of it. After dinner, everyone went to sleep and all were on time for our morning departure to Ohio. Well, at least that's what happened in my fantasy world. But we did all make it on the bus and are hurtling across Ohio to make our next concert--a joint performance with the fantastic Glee Club at Miami University of Ohio.

I practice my stand-up routine in Pittsburgh while the Glee Club looks on in bored semi-amusement. By the end of the week, they'll have heard all my material multiple times!