Christmas is in the Air...

Today is a day full of Christmas celebrations, and every minute has been exciting for me.

Last week, I went into the Music Development Office to pick up the Christmas gift bag that every Adopt-a-Student Scholarship recipient gets.  While I was in there, Scott, the director of the office, said, "Raissa, do you have a church gig for this weekend?"  I didn't.  He said, "Do you want one?"  I did.  He explained to me that it involved one rehearsal and one performance.  I was more than welcome to help.  Then, he said, "Is $125 enough?"  Yes, please!

So yesterday morning, Kenny and I drove down to Golden for a rehearsal with the choir, and then again this morning for the performance.  (I got up at 6:00 am... BLECH!)  Our role was to help fill the sound of the choir so that it could be heard over the full orchestra that was entirely composed of CU music students.  The church has its own choir, we were just beefing them up a bit.

The performance was excellent; we sang for a full house.  And the choir members were really cute old people.  There was one man who always knew the exact page number and yelled it out at the top of his lungs, the very nice lady who sat beside me and told me about her squished boob, and Peaches, the black female tenor who always had a wisecrack at the best possible moment, among others.

After the performance, Kenny and I headed to Denver for the 35th annual "Tuba Christmas."  I had never heard of such a thing, but Kenny had been to one in Aberdeen. Tuba Christmas happens when literally hundreds of brass players: euphonium, tuba, sousaphone, etc., etc., etc. get together and play Christmas carols and hymns arranged for a tuba choir.

It was awesome.  I literally got the goosebumps every 5 seconds, and it wasn't because of the chill in the air.  The performers were everywhere from 8 to 85 years old and included families, friends, and people who had performed in up to 34 Tuba Christmases in Denver alone.  There were about 250 performers, and the conductors were the cutest old men ever.  I can't even describe how cute they were.

I was a little sad that the audience wasn't a bit more excited to be there.  Kenny and I had a great time singing along, which the organizers encouraged, but not many were singing.  In any case, the two of us had a great time.

We had to park pretty far away from the location where Tuba Christmas was held, and I had worn heels.  On the way back to the car, we had to cross several roads.  At one such road, we decided to cross just as the hand started flashing at us not to cross.  I took a step onto the street, then another...  Thn, I suddenly had no shoe.  The heel had wedged itself into a crack on the road, and when I kept walking, I lost my shoe.  So there I was, in the middle of the street in downtown Denver, with only one shoe on my feet, and the hand getting ready to tell us not to walk.  I was laughing so hard I could hardly contain myself, and so was everyone around us.  I finally rescued my shoe and ran across the street.  All I could say was, "I hope everyone who saw that laughed really hard."  

Now, I'm getting ready to head over to my church, ULC, for our Christmas Hymns and Reading service.  Because there will probably be no students here on Christmas, we are celebrating today by singing and reading traditional Christmas Eve stuff.  I'm leading a few hymns, chanting some antiphons, and singing "O Holy Night" for the Recessional.  They are going to record the service and give copies to alumni, so I'm pretty excited about it.

It's finally beginning to feel like Christmas around here...

(N.) Dakota's Got Talent

Yes, it's true.  People actually live in North Dakota, and some of them even have talents other than farming and drinking! 

This may be news to some of you out there who aren't from "The Great White North" (as Jedd, my roommate's boyfriend calls it), but it's true.  Two prime examples showed their stuff right here in Boulder on Friday night.

Ever since my arrival in Boulder, I've been attending the University Lutheran Chapel, which is a little church affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  It has great people, a great location, a great pastor, a great sanctuary... it's just great. The only bad thing about it is that it's dying.  It's basically just a matter of time before there is literally no money.  It's a difficult situation, but surrounding churches do a lot of stuff to help out, like serve meals after the service on Sunday evenings and host talent show/fundraisers for us.

One such fundraiser was held on Friday night at Mt. Hope Lutheran Church.  I briefly mentioned the show in my blog last week.  Mt. Hope offered to donate up to $500 to ULC, $100 for every performer that ULC would bring to a talent show, with some of the funds raised being matched by Thrivent.  With my friend Cody (although he's not technically a member of ULC), ULC took 6 participants to the show.

Let me tell you a bit about my friend Cody from the NoDak.  We were involved in a few mutual activities throughout our years at Jamestown College.  I was his VP when he was President of the Student Body and we were both in choir.  We even hung out on occasion.  Cody was studying science and accounting, and was also finding time to accompany for churches and for practically every soloist and group at JC.  After graduation, he chose to move to Denver to attend the University of Colorado at Denver School of Dental Medicine. But had he chosen to be a rocket scientist, or anthropologist, or zoologist, he could do that, too.  He could theoretically do whatever.  Because he rocks.  Anyway... (sorry, Cody...)

I hadn't even seen Cody since graduation, although we kept a semblance of touch during my music school decision process.  Then, on my trek to CO, I met my parents (and their carload of my stuff) in Belle Fouche, SD.  When I pulled to a pump to get gas, I thought that I heard someone say my name.  I turned around to see Cody in his car, also on his way back to CO for the year... random...  We made plans to hang out once we were settled and that was it. 

Upon arriving in CO, Cody and I would chat occasionally online.  During our more recent chats, Cody had been complaining about missing accompanying, so when the opportunity to sing for the talent show came I asked him to play for me, and he agreed... Yay! We still hadn't even seen each other since we ran into each other in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, SD, although we only live 35 minutes from one another.

After a bit of traveling confusion, Cody arrived at my house on Friday evening, and we headed to the talent show.  There was a gallery display before the show featuring crocheting, photography, fly-tying, and knitting.  Then, we headed to the sanctuary to take in the live performances. 

The emcee for the night was this hilarious retired pastor who must have googled "corny jokes" to come up with his material.  Loved it. The Mt. Hope handbell choir was awesome, a little dude played "The Entertainer," a former opera singer sang, there was an accordionist, a percussionist playing Bach on the marimba, a flutist, another pianist, etc., etc. etc.
 
Then, Cody played.  And those people loved him.  He played "Holy, Holy, Holy" arranged by Marilyn Hamm and rocked it.  I followed him, singing "Gretchen am Spinnrade" Franz Schubert.  It went well, except for when I sang a high note and the little boy in the front row plugged his ears... 

Yes, that's right: Talent from the NoDak, although Cody kept crediting the arranger instead of himself.  I saw his point when he said, "Well, I couldn't play it if she hadn't written it!"  But I still think that it's more about the playing.  Whateva.  We'll have to agree to disagree.

Let me just say that those people at Mt. Hope loved the talent from ULC.  It was awesome to see their appreciation for our talents, which is just something we enjoy doing...  Especially when we were really the ones who needed to appreciate them for funding our church.  
And in true ND form, the night ended in downtown Boulder with lots of friends and drinking and dancing, and people sleeping on couches in my apartment.


Thanks again, Cody!  Keep performing!  You rock!