Bama Girl in Vegas: Busy Bergmanns

have we been busy lately! Chris is in Madrigals Choir at school and he made the Clark County School District Middle School Honor Choir as well. He has been attending rehearsals for the last 2 ½ weeks for the Honor Choir. This past week he had 3 rehearsals in a row for it leading up to the performance on Wednesday October 22nd at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The middle school choir performed 6 songs and then a 7th song with the high school honor choir. Chris was very excited because Z. Randall Stroope who is the composer of his favorite piece, Omnia Sol, was their conductor. He was, however, slightly disappointed that the honor choir girls got to sing Omnia Sol instead of the boys. Dr. Stroope actually called him and another boy from his school down from the back row and put them in the front row during rehearsal because he liked that their voices were so deep and wanted them to be heard more! I cannot even describe the proud look that was on Chris’ face when he came home after rehearsal that day and told us about this! He was just beaming!! The performance was so good! Louis and I are so proud of Chris! He looked so grown up standing up on that stage during the performance and I think that he was actually proud of himself too! Those kids all sounded so good. It’s hard to believe that they are just in middle school.

And let me tell you, just the fact that he is even in Madrigals and Honor Choir is something that makes us proud. You see, Chris gets extremely bad stage freight if he has to perform by himself. And this is exactly what he had to do to tryout for both Madrigals and Honor Choir. We found out about his stage freight a few years ago when he was in elementary. He wanted to tryout for a school talent show and had a panic attack during the tryout. The teachers said he turned white as a ghost, started breathing hard and sweating and they were concerned that he was going to pass out! So last year when he decided to tryout for Madrigals (he had to sing by himself in front of 3 judges), I was concerned about how he would handle it. I got the music for the piece of the song he had to learn and played it on the piano for him so he could practice. He and I worked and worked on it and I thought that he had it down really well. But on the day of tryouts, he didn’t go. But his choir teacher Mrs. Fleischer didn’t take to kindly to that, so she cornered him the next day and had him do the piece for just her and then gave him a shot at being in Madrigals. And I am pretty sure that she is glad that she forced him to tryout!

Fast forward to this year….imagine my surprise when Chris decided that he was going to tryout for the CCSD Honor Choir!! He seemed to be doing well with it all, until Friday, the day before the tryout. Mrs. Fleischer had a rehearsal with all the kids trying out after school. I went to pick up Chris and when I saw most of the other kids coming out and no Chris, I knew something was up. I walked into the choir room and saw Chris, pale as a sheet, shaky, breathing really shallow and sweating. I immediately had him take off his backpack and hoodie and sit down. I fanned him while Mrs. Fleischer worked with all the other boys and then saved Chris for last. She talked to him and encouraged him and got him to sing the song. And without prompting, he sang it perfectly in pitch. She told him that he is a talented young man and that she wouldn’t let him tryout if she didn’t think he was capable.

He went to tryouts the next morning and afterward he was sure that he didn’t make it. He said that the judges had warned him that the music they were using was a lot slower than he had practiced with. But even with that warning, he said he wasn’t able to keep up with the song and that he was just terrible. Nothing I could say made him feel any better. My Mom even spoke to him over the phone and nothing she said helped either. But, of course, we know that all this was for nothing, because he made Honor Choir!

This whole experience has really helped his confidence. He is helping Mrs. Fleischer out in Concert Choir (which he sings with as well) by working with the other basses and he really is becoming a leader! Both Chris and Mark have performances coming up. Chris has a Fall Concert with Madrigals and the advanced orchestra and band this Wednesday, October 29th. I will update on them with pictures and hopefully video soon after them as our schedule permits. Chris also has performances next month for 3 different Christmas lighting ceremonies. Whew! We are going to be busy!! For now, here are pictures of our handsome boy from the Honor Choir performance and links to videos from the performance that I posted onto YouTube. Enjoy!