by Lauren Gooden
Our concert Saturday afternoon was remarkable. The sounds of percussion and their rhythm were fluid and helped to paint a beautiful picture which mimicked Mr. Simmons conducting. The woodwinds produced soothing lyrical magic that sounded like a bird’s morning song. The brass showcased dramatic and anticipating theme-like sounds that alluded to something big, and the strings crescendoed, accented notes, and demonstrated beautiful piano phrases, to help accommodate for melodies. The room was electric, intense, and colorful in every way. It was like making contact with one of those plasma balls. That’s how the audience responded to us. To Mr. Simmons. To Mrs. Eidlestein. To Caleb Endres and all of our concertmasters. To every soloist that took the bravery and confidence that everyone has in different areas of their lives and laid it out on the stage. It was euphoric. So in translation, we were all exhausted.
Sunday. 9:15 am. That was our report time for our departure. And if you didn’t know, musicians are punctual, and by punctual I mean there were people there as early as 8:40 am I believe. Not me, though. I got there early, and by early I mean 9:11. I stayed up all night, packed at 2:00 am, took a 1 hour nap, and continued packing at 5:30 am. Not the best idea, I know. But I grabbed all my stuff and only left one thing behind, which didn’t prove to be an issue! Anyways, to get back on track, the traveling process was simple. Well thought out and well organized. Shout out to Ms. Marna, Mr. Duffy, and everyone on the MYSO and World Projects staff team! Group 1 was on the first bus and groups 2 and 3 were on the second.
Once we all arrived at O’Hare, everything was great. We checked our bags, went through the TSA checkpoint, and found our gate. My group soon realized that there were two flights ahead of us which meant no seating for at least the next 2 and a half hours so we immediately went in search of food. After half of the group settled on Wow Bao and the other on Burger King, we sat, ate, conversed, and found our gate, which turned out to be a totally different one than the first one we found due to a flight delay and felt like it was 10 miles away.
We found seats near charging ports which didn’t work the best, filled water bottles, read books, watched shows, some of us straightened our hair, and then we all settled in before taking altitude over the Atlantic which for most of us proved to be a sleepless night.