At the moment, singers are in the pool, on the waterslides, in an escape room, in the gym.. lots of fun being had tonight!
This morning, we had a huge and varied breakfast buffet at the hotel. Have I already mentioned these swanky digs? It’s the nicest hotel this choir has ever stayed at, and we are taking full advantage of all the hospitality.
We set out for our first concert at Casorso Elementary. It’s a big school in the Mission district, about 600 children! They call themselves “a singing school”, with every child participating in choir and a comprehensive music program. You could tell that these children were used to performances and singing! A very warm reception. Lovely school. From there, we headed further along the road to Chute Lake Elementary, also in the Mission area, about 15 minutes past Casorso Elementary. We travelled through orchard and farm land, up the bench where we could still see where the catastrophic wildfires of 2003 had ravaged the mountainside, burning more than 200 homes. The homes there are beautiful, and the developments are quaint, with a nod to the settler history there. But up the hill behind the homes, the mountain is still visibly charred.
Chute Lake Elementary gave us such a warm welcome! We had made the decision to really tighten down our program to a slick 30 minutes, with Children’s Choir singing 2 upbeat songs, Take Me to the Water with Children & Youth together (and audience participation), then Youth Choir singing 2 songs, ending with The Count… which of course brought the house down every time they sang it today!
Lunchtime took us to Orchard Park Mall, where we let everyone loose at the food court. This mall has been very much overhauled and updated recently. Ellison Elementary, our afternoon performance, was north of the mall, due west from UBCO and the airport. Past orchards and fruit packing warehouses, greenhouses and residential areas… and more orchards and views of the valley… and we found ourselves in front of the sweetest children! We sent everyone off for their long weekend with our zippy 30 minute set of “hits”.
We had almost 2 hours of downtime back at the hotel. It was during this time that I came to realize that the drum that we need for Saturday’s concerts would not be making the trip to Kelowna… a flurry of phone calls and texts… and we tracked down a drum for sale at a local music store that was amazingly, RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from our hotel!!!
What choir tour would be complete without a dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory? Right? Kyle pointed out that he’d been to almost every Old Spaghetti Factory location in the world, thanks to Choir tours!
After dinner, everyone had the night off to relax and play… and now all are off to sleep! Looking forward to an intense but fun day tomorrow!