Choir Tour

A few weeks back, Ashlyn and I headed to Nashville and Memphis Tennessee on tour with her high school choir.  First off, this is an amazing choir.  Choir is a big deal here in Danville (much to Dallin's dismay :) and the high school has some phenomenal choirs.  This all girls choir Ashlyn is in took first place at Golden State back in February - they are really good.  I decided to tag along for tour this year as a chaperone since I've never been to Tennessee.  Getting there was a bit hairy - our flight out of San Francisco was delayed (for 1/2 our group), causing us to miss our connection in Denver.  We wound up traveling the whole day; routing thru Denver, then Chicago and then finally arriving in Nashville 12 hours later.  A fit beginning to this whirl wind 6 day tour.  

The choir sang at a beautiful cathedral in downtown Nashville on Palm Sunday.  It was interesting to sit through mass on this unique occasion.

I loved downtown Nashville.  Broadway Street is lined with restaurants and bars with live music spilling out onto the road - all the up and coming country artists trying to be noticed and make it in the industry.

 We got a backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry and even got to sing a bit on the stage.  Being a country music lover, this was all heaven.  We also visited the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Other places of interested we toured: The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) and Bel Meade Plantation.  We also attended two evening musical theatre performances and an incredible choir concert at Belmont University.

After three days in Nashville, we headed down the road a few hours to Memphis.  We left the country music capital and entered the historical city for the Blues and the beginnings of Rock & Roll.

 I think one of my favourite places was Sun Studio's - where Elvis and Johnny Cash did their first recordings.  It was so inspiring to be standing there in the studio room listening to the story of 17 year old Elvis coming in and paying $4 to have himself recorded.  He hung around the studio for a year trying to come up with something the studio owner would professionally record when finally a song was recorded and taken up the street to local radio and the rest is history.

 After the studio we headed to Graceland.  Can you believe Elvis was really blonde (he dyed his hair) - who knew?  I've never been a huge Elvis fan but his story is so interesting and inspiring and so very tragic.

In Memphis we also did a ghost walk downtown (including Beale Street - home of the Blues) and visited the Civil Rights Museum in the old Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot.

Another one of my favourite parts of the tour was the visits to three high schools: one in Nashville, one in Memphis, and one across the Mississippi River in Mississippi.  Our choir would visit that high schools choir and they would sing for each other.  It was so interesting for these kids (and me) to walk into these other high schools, on the other side of the US, and see how things are the same and different.

Such a great experience to visit these musical cities with a musical group.  It wore me out, didn't get much sleep, but it was a jam packed schedule of interesting, history packed places.  I really enjoyed spending the time with Ashlyn and getting to know a few of her friends.  Coming to realise how short our time left with Ashlyn really is.