On Friday morning, we woke up, ate brekky, (for me, an AHmazing egg sandwich) and headed out to Portland. Some people chose alternate things to do: playing disc golf, hiking Mount Hood, and so on. The Portland contingent was dropped off at Powell’s City of Books (massive and eclectic), where we wandered around getting books, coffee, and cool bags. From there we dispersed as we chose, stopping for coffees, food, walks in rose gardens, and thrifting.
We reconvened and headed to our first concert of the season. It was a beautiful venue—lots of “space to breathe.” Wendell helped us find our “true piano,” commenting that during the rehearsal days he had “felt like he was with the choir in a five gallon bucket.”
Giving our first concert was a lovely feeling—we finally got to share our work with a real live audience. ☺️ of course, we had some nerves to work through: will we remember the movements? Will we look where we are supposed to? Will all of the lyrics stay solidly in our minds?
Post concert, we interacted with our audience and headed back to our kind Brownsville hosts, spent a night of (hopefully) restful slumber, and then left Saturday morning for the beginning of tour proper.
We drove south to Medford. Our concert was again hosted by kind and excellent people who fed us well (special shout out to the cake and strawberries and cream trifle!😋) At the concert, the audience, though not super large, was very attentive and friendly when we talked with them afterward. As I walked through the auditorium looking for any left behind items, I picked up a paper from one of the benches. It read,
“Name: Esperanza.
Email: nothing.
Prayer request/comment: I am a kid. I like this concert. Bye.😛 Boom boom.”
Yay for good feedback from a kid!
Abigail Heatwole, soprano I
