Concert Chorus tours Grand Rapids

The Concert Chorus has just returned from a whirlwind trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan where they performed at the Knapp Forest Elementary School with the North American Choral Company (formerly the St. Cecelia Singers) and the Young Naperville Singers, who had also made the trip for the weekend. The GECC was also invited to sing by themselves for both worship services at the LaGrave Church. They were such a hit that many parishioners chose to stay for the second service just to hear them sing.

The choristers also managed to squeeze in some sightseeing, visiting the Meijer Butterfly Garden and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. They finished the tour with a traditional stop at Old Country Buffet before returning home. And they were only gone three days!

 Erica was in the GECC from 1985-88 and is now an active free-lance oboist in the Chicago area.  She is a founding member of Quintet Attacca, the winner of the Wind Gold Medal and Grand Prize of the 2002 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Quintet Attacca has played concerts in Italy, New York City, Chicago, and throughout the Midwest.  Quintet Attacca is the ensemble-in-residence at Lake Forest College.  Recently, Erica was a  soloist with the GECC at both the December concert and February ACDA convention performances.
 
In addition to her busy performing schedule, Erica teaches oboe at Lake Forest College, the Music Institute of Chicago, and Wheeling and Buffalo Grove high schools.  Her husband, Collin Anderson, is the bassoonist in Quintet Attacca.  Together they coordinate two full-time performing and teaching schedules and the at-home care of their two-year-old daughter, Daphne.
 
Erica writes, "performing with the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus was instrumental in giving me the tools to succeed in a career in music.  From GECC, I learned how to be professional, how to truly listen, and how to make music expressively."

Notes from Emily

When it rains, it pours!  On two consecutive days recently we received two lovely invitations: one from the Chicago Symphony to sing on their sold-out "Friday Night at the Movies" concert THIS March 31st, and the second to join the Grant Park Symphony this July for two performances of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana at Millenium Park.  Not long after, we were invited to be a featured choir at next season's national convention of the Organization of American Kodaly Educators, when 1800 music educators from across the country will come together in Chicago.  Our choristers and families are ever ready to make these special opportunities happen.  The CSO concert is during our spring break and involves several extra rehearsal calls.  Fortunately, we have enough singers who will be in town and who understand what a thrill it always is to perform with one of the world's great orchestras at Symphony Center.  Great dedication from our singers leads to great memories in the making...and ever onward we go!

Emily Ellsworth