Here’s to the Band

It may surprise some of you (hi seven readers!) to know that I do actually listen to non-classical and non-Motown derived genres of music.
My friend Liz called me the other day and said she had an extra ticket to go see Vampire Weekend at the Verizon Wireless Theater downtown and I jumped at the chance to go see one of my favorite bands.  I have known Liz literally all of my life.  Well, scratch that, all but seven days of my life as she was born a week after I was, but tomayto/tomahto.  Her dad was actually the one who delivered me, we went to the Jordan School and then Crockett public schools, and I'd say we've done a pretty good job of keeping in touch over the years since we left our little hamlet. 
We came in a little late from dinner while the first opening act, The Very Best, was doing their last couple of numbers. We did get to catch all of the second opener, Beach House, and I'm completely ub-sessed with them.  They are kind of like a more chill version of Florence and the Machine, who I featured in one of my earliest posts.

Listen and LOVE

Though Vampire Weekend may sound like the name of a band trying to elbow in to the Twilight-True Blood- Count from Sesame Street craze they are the antithesis of what one might consider a gothic style.  When a friend at work asked me what type of music they perform, alls I could answer was: "I dunno, they're a band... they play band music."  I'd imagine a non operaphile might say the same thing when trying to describe what type of opera, say, La Boheme is: "Ummm, I dunno, they sang loud? She has amazingly good breath support for someone dying of a respiratory illness?"  Lucky for you there is the magic of YouTube and you can see for yourself what they are like!

I'm with CoCo!

     

Where's the bass player!!!!

Into the Woods

 

A reproduction of us at the beginning of the week.  Look how happy we are!

Intensive week is FINALLY over and holy mother am I exhausted. Getting up at 6 am and having nine hours of rehearsal a day with these kids just sucks the energy right out of ya, but it has been a wonderful time and both of our concerts went very well!! I have now officially sung my first Elijah and couldn't be happier about it.

Enjoy these pictures from the camp grounds.  You may notice that there aren't any campers in these pictures... we are (rightfully) contractually obligated to get written permission from the campers if we want to take/use their picture and I just don't haz the time or energy to deal with that.

Blue Lake?  I mean, I guess that's what this is... it's next to the campus so it must be, right?

 

 

The "Beaux" Cabin, which I lived in for the week with another counselor and eight of the campers, is located in the Siena unit of cabins and lies in the "back 40" of the camp grounds.  Basically that means you have to walk a long ass way to get to the main campus

 

 

Outttttthouse

 

 

My little nook with my record player to keep out the insanity.  Interestingly enough, the round pillow you see is from the May rehearsal weekend.  I accidentally forgot to bring one from home and had twenty minutes to run to Walgreen's and find one at a nearby town.  Unfortunately the only pillow they had was a tiny tiny one for ten dollars.  Sabrina, the soprano soloist, was with me and was like: "Um, Joseph, I don't know if you'd be interested, but this dog bed is also only ten dollars and much bigger"  So..... I slept on a dog bed and let me tell you, at the end of a long day that shiz is com.for.tab.le!

 

 

 

Walking from the back 40 to main campus through the... ... ...

 

 

   WOODS!

 

 

Interested in losing a couple of pounds before some special occasion next week.  I highly recommend the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp diet... walk walk walk walk sing sing sing sing eat walk walk walk

Honestly, I have about enough sand in my shoes to build a one-month timer

 

 

The Stewart Concert Shell, where we performed Elijah.

 

 

Miller Theater, where the choir's a capella concert was held

 

 

Beautiful log-cabin chapel

 

 

This place is just ridiculous!  The "Rose" theater, a reproduction of an Elizabethan theater, where the theater group will present their Shakespeare plays

 

 

Inside the "Rose"

DON'T DO IT, JULIET!!!

 

 

A typical meal at Blue Lake.  I'm not sure if you know this, but potato salad goes with EVERY meal.  Sure, it looks delicious with a cheese burger, but imagine how great it tastes with tacos (!) and chinese food (!!) and basically anything edible :(

 

 

Ellen, one of the counselors, and Emily, the mezzo soloist in Elijah

 

 

Myself and Seth trying to act like we have the energy to live

 

 

John, the tenor soloist, and Sabrina, the soprano soloist getting ready to build a campfire for the kids.  (With the general watching guard of course!)

 

The counselors at the end of the week.  Fifteen hours from when this picture was taken, the nine of us will be herding seventy-two choir members from western Michigan to Chicago O'Hare airport and on our way to Paris, Fuh-rance.  So as Jason Stackhouse would do, please pray to God, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Allah, Confusion, Buddha, Scientology, aliens or that lion from Narnia to make sure that we all make it there with our sanity in tact

An interesting side-note for you all of you film buffs (and I do use that term rather loosely), the movie American Pie is based on Blue Lake Fine Arts camp but the directors refused to let them film anything on the campus.  So there ya go!

Artist: Stephen Sondheim/ Album: Into the Woods