By Michelle Gao
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Monday, Nov. 20, 2006, The OG, features & arts

[Note: For a complete list of Uni's all-district musicians, click here. We will publish the names of Uni's all-state honorees as soon as they become available.]

IF THE HANDOUT says that we're leaving Uni on Saturday morning at 7, it means that I have to be out of the door by 6:30, and that means I have to get up at at least 6, or even earlier if I don't want to rush. The earliest I usually get up on a Saturday is around 10. At least.

So what trip could possibly make me, a reknowned sleepyhead, willing to get up at such an ungodly hour in the morning? The Illinois Music Educators Association District III concert, of course.

Saturday was the second time that I made the trip to Bloomington-Normal, although we went to Illinois State University instead of Bloomington High School, which is where the auditions for our particular district were held Oct. 9.

That earlier trip, though, was a good deal more tense. I spent the entire bus ride up there worried sick about my audition, and wondering when the audition actually was. Would they have good warm-up rooms? Would I have to sing as soon as I got there? I don't know about anyone else, but I personally have a terrible singing voice in the morning for at least three hours after I wake up.

And after my audition … oh no. I came out of the room dazed and sure that the sky was falling. It turns out my audition must have gone all right, though, because I got into the all-district chorus. Hence the trip Saturday.

When we got there, I followed veterans Robert Croisant, Paige Martin, Daisy Hassani, and Ethan Berl into a building, up a flight of stairs, and then into a huge auditorium. After leaving my heap of stuff in one of the seats, I discovered that we had assigned seats. And I, being a paranoid little Michelle, wondered if they had seated us according to rank as they did for orchestra.

(It turned out that they hadn't.)

My seat was in the fourth row, sandwiched between two other soprano I's. We had been seated in kind of an odd way; it looked like this from left to right:

Soprano IIs, alto IIs, tenors, basses, alto I's, soprano I's.

The women being on opposite sides of the (very huge) room made it kind of weird, because we couldn't hear each other, but it turned out all right in the end. You could really hear the harmonies blending together.

The one thing I really must complain about is being squished so close together, though. Soprano I's hit high notes, and when those notes are being sung directly into both of your ears, it can be a little painful. And in addition to being painful, you can't really hear your own note, so you just sing it and pray it comes out right.

We rehearsed all day. It was, actually, very fun. But not in a “yay-everyone's-happy-and-smiling” kind of way. It was fun because everyone was serious, and took chorus very seriously. It was fun because the sound of so many lovely voices gave you goosebumps when a phrase was sung perfectly.

And at the end of the day, our progress was extremely noticeable. For instance, our vowels had improved exponentially. (Remember, never say “uh”; “ah” is angelic!) We had cleaned up rough spots, and we were actually beginning to feel the music.

The other really fantastic thing about Saturday was that it allowed me to see friends whom I don't get to see very often, namely people I've performed with in Champaign- Urbana Theatre Company shows.

I went out to lunch at around noon with a bunch of them, and we proceeded to gorge ourselves on McDonald's fare. Oh, yum. It was good that I did, though; thanks to a certain unnamed Korean girls basketball player (ahem, Aran Yoo) I wouldn't be able to eat again until around 10:45 that night.

After lunch, it was time to rehearse some more. And then some more. Eventually, they let us go change and get ready for the concert. It was a little disorienting, going from rehearsing all day to getting ready for a concert in the matter of a minute.

The concert itself was amazing. The senior concert progressed like this: First the band performed, then the chorus, and then the orchestra. After the junior high concert was over, the senior chorus filed onto the stage and sang a few phrases from each piece for a soundcheck. After that, we all headed into the first five rows of the auditorium that had been reserved for us and watched the band perform. They were good, I suppose. I was a little nervous and didn't pay too much attention to them.

When we walked onto the risers again (risers which, by the way, rose out of the stage), the nervousness evaporated. I mean, hey. We'd spent all day rehearsing, and however the concert went, it would be fine. With that thought in mind, I felt a lot better as the piano played the opening notes for the first song (“How Excellent Is Thy Name”).

The rest of the chorus' time onstage was kind of a blur. I know we did well; I remember thinking in the middle of a song how amazing it sounded. When I walked offstage and settled back down in my seat to watch the orchestra perform, I felt a little sad. It was over. Darnit.

The orchestra, though, was amazing. The thing about watching any orchestra perform that I find funny is the look on the musicians' faces. They all look so grave and serious, but then when you listen to the music, it's often cheerful. It's also fun to watch the conductors: They really get into it, and jump around and jab at the air. When the orchestra was done, the musicians got a standing ovation that lasted for at least three minutes.

I would tell you how much I savored the afterglow of performing, but there was, unfortunately, no time. But you'll hear about that later … (For the lowdown on that story, click here.)