A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....Oh, sorry. Let's begin again. A long time ago, as in this past December, Samuel performed in a Christmas concert with his high school choir. Singing was a new venture for him that caught his attention at the beginning of the school year. He joined and participated in the choir all the way through the first semester but the reality of the situation was that it made for a very long Thursday as he didn't get home until 5:30pm and generally he had a lot of homework to complete for his Friday lessons. By the beginning of the second semester he decided to back out along with nearly half of the group that they started with in the fall. Commuting an hour each way to and from school is tough and I honestly don't blame him. It is no small feat to balance studies and extracurriculars unfortunately.
We are so proud of Samuel though for courageously stepping out of his comfort zone and discovering something that was enjoyable for him. We since have learned of a gospel choir here in Caselle so maybe that might be something for him to check out next year that would be closer to home.
Samuel added his baritone voice to the choir and his director was happy to have another male voice in a choir and school where there is a female majority. Samuel even had a solo in a song (that his director ended up joining to make a duet during the concert).
We had to chuckle because the concert did not have a lot of Christmas to it. Well, there was Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" sung with an Italian accent. But that was it. I mean what can you expect when there are not really any Italian Christmas songs in their musical heritage? Apparently there was a Japanese Christmas song, but who knew? It was a very eclectic range of pieces from "Give Me That Old Time Religion", "Drunken Sailor", Japanese and several African tribal songs.
On this particular night the student choir of about 30 students was joined by alumni, staff and professors. Anyway, enjoy the pictures and video clips. (Samuel's solo is in the first video)
