October: Valparaiso, Indiana

The beautiful Valparaiso University Chapel, where lots of friends and family turned out (because its the heartland!)

The Hostetters.

The Hinmans.

Matt with old friend Martin Poock who sings with the Chicago Lyric Chorus. 21 years ago they were the First and Second Spirits together in The Magic Flute.

October: Rockford, Illinois

Here we return to the Court Street United Methodist Church in Rockford, Illinois, presented by the Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center to open their 125th season. We also worked with the boys chorus Kantorei and the Rock Valley Children's Choir, and did a new thing we're offering which is fun - leading 200 adult choristers in an evening sing-a-long.

September: Good bye to California for a while

Our last performance at home (before Christmas) was in Sacramento on a 100 degree afternoon, in St. Francis of Assissi Church.

Christmas may SEEM a long way off, but we're working on the program in our warm-ups. While our last two weeks in Northern California have been intense, nothing compares with our Christmas tour. We always look forward to it and love it, and it will be here before we know it! All you Bay Area people should get your tickets now!

Unfortunately while we were doing this, somebody was kicking down the sacristy door (to our dressing room) and making away with six of our backpacks - rental car keys, house keys, wallets, phones, music, our egg shakers for the Mason Bates piece - and more, as you can imagine.

If it had to happen, it was at least better that we were with one of our super-friendly home town (Bay Area) crowds, who spent a very long intermission while we assessed the scene, got mad, calmed down, and made some phone calls about credit cards. They gave us a consolatory standing ovation when we came back out - which really did help!

Tomorrow we head out for Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and New York State. We will be having a Youth Choral Festival in Akron, Ohio - and of course we'll tell you how it all goes!

September: a Night in the Woods

Winding down our time here at home, here we are being outdoorsy amongst the California Redwoods in the Armstrong Woods in Guerneville on the Russian River in Sonoma County. This was a benefit for the Park. The venue was amazing. The amplification was actually OK (we don't love being amplified...) we had delicious home cooked food and there were some lovely volunteers there to help us, and everyone seemed very enthusiastic about having us there. Unfortunately not so much that three of us didn't get misdirected into the pitch dark for an hour in the woods afterwards on the way back to the car with the CD suitcases. Good thing there's not audio of that... A local choral group went on before us, a comprehensive speech about government park funding was made, and there was a four-man bluegrass group playing at the entrance, which blew us away! It's the least we can do for those glorious trees and the people who take care of them. The kind of evening we will long remember.

Our dressing room - we didn't actually put up the tent ourselves, but we'd like to think we could have.

September: We visit some Middle Schools

Today we split up and went to visit some of the schools which will attend our Middle School Youth Choral Festival on October 23 in San Francisco. It's always good to get acquainted first. Adam and Eric head to A.P. Giannini Middle School near the beach (which you couldn't see for the fog) in San Francisco. Meanwhile others of us were at Ochoa Middle School in Hayward, and Graham Middle School in Mountain View in the warm California sun.

We work with the mixed choir on the songs they will bring to the Festival.

Our Middle School program was founded a few years ago through several generous grants from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund here in San Francisco. This year our "Open Door" program - which enables us to work directly with music teachers and choir directors - got started thanks again to the Haas Fund, to whom we are always profoundly grateful.