Magic...

I love McNary. I love concert choir. I love it, love it, love it.

So we're at the "advanced choir festival" at Sprague. It was really awesome.

To begin with, McKay, North and West go up and perform.

We clap politely at the end of each song. We sit high on the creaking wooden benches, awaiting our chance to perform.

Sprague gets on the risers. As soon as the choir collectively let out a single noise, I knew why they are considered the state powerhouse. Their choir is a freak of nature. An AMAZING freak of nature, but a freak of nature nonetheless.

I feel a bit disheartened as we walk onstage. I've seen it all before. The director gets excited, the choir gets pumped up, and you get that good tingly feeling until you sing your first note, and then you realize that it won't be the concert you were dreaming about, but the concert you would come to expect from a choir that doesn't care.

I didn't even have the chance for the tingly feeling.

Halfway onto the risers, one of the risers came unhooked and we had to fix it.

We kept our composure.

We all make it on, and Mr. Taylor reminds everyone that tonight was the night to show everyone what we're made of, what we can do.

He gives us the countdown.

3...

2...

1...

To my surprise, our feet all come apart and land at the same time, no one forgetting the direction in which they were supposed to step.

And then he raised his hands.

I almost winced as time seemed to freeze. I thought it would be same old, same old.

We were about to be embarrassed by last year's second best choir in the state.

But I was wrong.

To my surprise, the sound that escaped our choir was not one of horror, but one sent from heaven itself.

I was even more surprised as I looked around, and saw that all around me, faces were forming and bodies were moving.

We weren't just singing.

We were making music.

In the end, we got the loudest, longest most enthusiastic ovation of the night.
We stood and waited.
And waited.
And waited.

The applause continued.

As the applause begin to die down, our director signaled for us to exit.

They didn't stop clapping until our second row in a choir of 112 had exited.

That's 51 people.

We lived it up that night.

Dr. Long of Willamette University said to us as we went to sit back down, "you guys just hit a home run, you hit it out of the park!"

Today in choir, we had to come to a decision.

A choice.

An ultimatum.

For long enough we would sit idly by, going through the motions but never really giving our all.
No more.
Now we had to choose:
Will we be the choir that takes third at State every year because we are insanely talented and we'd rather not work, or will we be the choir who wants it the most, who needs it the most, who will do whatever they have to do in order to achieve the next level musically?

It was our choice.

And my feeling is that we picked the right answer.