Just a little bit about the Hastings College, High School Honor festival. It is the oldest honor music festival in the state of Nebraska, now in it’s 41st year. The choir and band only accepts juniors and seniors, while the string orchestra is open to all high school students. This year the clinician was Dr. Daniel R. Afonso Jr. and the students spent 6-7 hours a day Friday and Saturday practicing their pieces for the concert on Sunday.
My son is in the middle of the above picture, a senior, and sings Bass II. Until a year ago he never tried out for honor choirs. He was accepted for Hastings last year, ECNC last fall, the University of Nebraska Omaha BOCH Festival last month, and two years ago sang at Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Elmwood-Murdock choir in a mixed ensemble. Quite a set of accomplishments in the past few years. Yeah, and he hates for me to brag about it too. But what are the chances he’ll ever read this? Slim to none.
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching and listening to him sing. In six months he will be leaving for Marine boot camp in San Diego, CA and starting a career as an MP. I am more and more proud of him every day. I hope, somehow, that he will find a way to continue singing. Maybe on a base somewhere a group of them will start a group, enter a talent show, or just be goofing around one day with ditties and form a group like the 4 Troops.
Disclaimer: I know, the top photo is not one of my best, very amateurish Photoshop eiditing. But hey, the purpose of this blog is to stretch not only my photography skills but to get better in Photoshop as well. I was experimenting with layers, selecting colors, and skewing images. I accomplished that. So my goal for the night was complete. Considering the lighting and the distance I thought the pictures turned out decent. I tried to improve it in Photoshop but was only slightly success.
The second picture was photoshopped too…I removed a random trombone player intruding on the choir and pushed the bleachers together.
Never apologize for trying or learning. We all started at the beginning. :}