The Chattanooga Girls Choir

Thursday, May 22, 2008
Day 1: Travel to West Virginia

The girls all arrived on time this morning so that we could leave by 11:00 a.m. After posing for photos and kissing family members good-bye, the tour members settled themselves on their luxury coach for the seven-hour ride to Charleston, West Virginia. With 47 seats available and just 25 people on the bus, there was plenty of room to spread out and visit back and forth!

On the way to Charleston, the girls had time to watch three movies: Hairspray, Finding Nemo, and Airplane! The choir managed to find time between movies to rehearse some of the new music for the festival. Such dedication!

The bus cruised along nicely until we got to the hills of West Virginia, and then every uphill section seemed to slow the bus down to a crawl. We also went through a couple of tunnels, including one that was reeeeeeally loooooooong. We finally arrived at our hotel with only a half an hour before the group rehearsal was due to start. However, thanks to LuAnn and her husband Michael, the check-in went fairly quickly, and the Holdens had also arranged for pizza to be delivered shortly after we arrived, so the girls had time to take their luggage to their rooms and stuff down some pizza before rehearsal.

The rehearsal was lead by the guest conductor for this festival, Rollo Dilworth. Dr. Dilworth is an award-winning composer and a remarkable man, and the children from all the choirs responded enthusiastically to him. He also gave them insight into the lyrics to his three songs that they are singing, to understand that the "dream" that all the songs refer to involves the hope of overcoming racial divisions and tensions.

Immediately after the rehearsal, the choirs were treated to an hour of storytelling by professional storyteller Karen Vuranch. Karen told tales from Appalachia and elsewhere, all the while getting the kids fully involved in her stories. At the end the children requested one more scary story, so she finished off with a story from Ireland about a girl who was attacked by a creature from a graveyard, but she tricked it into telling her where she could find gold. (Don't you love a happy ending?)

By 9:30 the choirs were sent back to their rooms with instructions to fall asleep as soon as they could manage, for tomorrow will be a very full day of rehearsals, ending with a Welcome Dinner and a square dance party!

The tour choir with director LuAnn Holden, ready to board the bus on a beautiful sunny morning.

The tour choir rehearsed on the way to West Virginia.

The choirs warmed up in the combined rehearsal with Dr. Rollo Dilworth.

Rollo Dilworth directed his own "Dream Trilogy" composition during rehearsal.

Karen Vuranch enchanted everyone with her stories of love, humor, mysteries, and ghosts.
She even brought along her own electric "campfire"!

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