By Alex Schumacher
Last fall, the Cantabile youth ensemble was created for grades 6-12. This group was different from the other children’s or youth choirs. This choir would be traveling to Washington D.C. in the summer to perform in the National Cathedral! All those who wanted to be in the choir were very excited about the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. Throughout the year, we rehearsed 10 different songs for the festival, as we had to perform all of them without our music.
Finally, on Thursday, June 28, we got to fly to Washington D.C. When we arrived, we had to learn how to use the Metro and go straight to our first rehearsal at the National City Christian Church. When we got there we learned there were eight choirs from all over the United States that came to participate in the YouthCUE festival of choirs. We just had five rehearsals to bring us all together and get ready for our concert on Monday night.
However, we didn’t just practice. We also did lots of sightseeing. On Friday we went to the Smithsonian Museums of American History and the Natural History Museum. We later had pizza at a place called Aria Pizza. We thought that was a good place for a choir to eat! That night a severe thunderstorm shook our nation’s capital and was one of the worst storms there in 100 years. Many people were without power, including one other choir, but we were lucky.
One of the highlights of our trip was a tour of the capitol building. That tour included a movie with information about the capitol and tours of two old Congress and Senate rooms, both dating back to the 1890s. We also got to visit old town Alexandria, where we were able to take a Potomac River tour that gave us great views of all the landmarks along the river, including all the monuments. On Sunday we went to church at the National Cathedral, and they recognized us out loud in the service for coming.
Other fun things we saw on our trip were the Washington Monument, the White House, a detective tour of Abraham Lincoln’s death, and the Air and Space Museum. On Monday morning we held our final rehearsal at the National Cathedral and got to explore Georgetown.
Mr. Stoker surprised us by coming on the day of our concert. It was an amazing experience singing at the National Cathedral. It sounded awesome with the sound of the 200 voices ringing off the walls of one of the most beautiful places ever. It was like God was right beside you.
We had a great time in D.C., and we are hoping to double or even triple in size next year. Thank you, Ms. Portele, for leading our choir and planning our trip. Thank you, Ms. Gossett, for also helping us. We appreciate all the support we received from Arborlawn. We had an awesome experience, and I hope you can have this experience with Cantabile too.
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