This post is long overdue! I’d like to share with you, faithful reader (I know there are some of you out there!) some thoughts on the experiences Euphonism and I had at the inaugural VoCALNation conference and festival, put on by CASA.
I think there had been CAL meet-ups, retreats and festivals (or quasi-festivals) before, but certainly this was a concerted effort to really focus on CAL’s needs as a new demographic in the a cappella community.
I had attended festivals before this that were put on by CASA, and others, and they are fabulous, generally, across the board. There’s a lot of love for this art form out there. However, as an adult, I can certainly observe and respect that almost all of the contemporary aca-singers out there for the past decade have been in the collegiate arena. It’s a huge scene, and that’s where CASA has to put it’s main focus, but it gives the festivals a decidedly college-centric slant, which again, while understandable, doesn’t provide a ton of knowledge for those of us who have moved on from that scene into adult-land, with its different challenges and requirements.
That’s why VoCALNation was a) so welcome, and b) so exciting. The highlights of SoJam and LAAF among others, was always hanging out with other CAL singers and talking shop, and to have a weekend devoted to sharing knowledge, showing off our performance skills to each other, and just finally MEETING a lot of people in person was amazing.
So, that’s enough about VCN in general terms, I want to share our experiences. Euphonism had been selected via video contest entry to have the great privilege of being able to share the stage with Treble (CAL hosts for the weekend, they did an amazing job), the amazing Duwende, and the Swingle Singers! I got to see the Swingles in London on my honeymoon in 2010, and it was, in short, incredible, and the opportunity to meet and learn from them was something we were all very excited about.
I’m going to touch on three points of the weekend, and how they helped us grow as a group.
First, the Friday night showcase: each CAL group had the opportunity to perform for our peers in a cool venue in NYC, Kenny’s Castaways, which was excellent, and Euphonism elected to do one song, which went well. What we got out of that evening was that our second car coming up to NYC had an adventure, ie. got stuck in horrid traffic and almost ran out of gas, thus 4 of our 7 members arrived at Kenny’s mere moments before we had to go on stage. Euphonism has faced this situation of being rushed before a show before, and before this, we had not handled it particularly well, and it definitely (in the past) affected our performance negatively. However, I was so pleased that we were able to rise to the import of the situation, and really focus and calm ourselves before we went on! That was a big step for us, and now, we are definitely calmer in the face of pre-performance snags than we ever have been as a result.
Second, our coaching: As part of being selected through the video contest, Euphonism was fortunate to receive a coaching from the Swingles (in this case, Clare and Kevin), and this was an amazing experience for us. In the prep for the weekend, I had been constantly emphasizing all the basic musicality we all work on (and often neglect) like dynamics, clean cutoffs, putting feeling into our performance, as I really did not want to sell this opportunity short for us with an hour of dynamics work. Euphonism rose to the occasion completely, and the Swingles were able to really dig into our arrangements, style, and tiny performance details in the coaching. This helped grow in 2 ways. First, obviously, all of the suggestions they made were so helpful in elevating our performance of the material. Second, it was very validating for the group to not hear an hour of “you have to really own the solo on this” or “you need more dynamics/balance/etc”. Now, when we’ve heard that in the past, it has always been timely and what we needed to hear at the that point, but it was so gratifying to finally get some professional acknowledgement that, yes, we had those thing in hand, and could move on to more specific tweaks. It was really a boost to the whole group that we saw proof that we had raised ourselves up a level in focus, musicianship, and performance.
Finally, the performance: As I stated before, we had the second slot in the main performance of the weekend. We selected the 3 songs we most wanted to share with the community, and were able to perform in a great setting with amazingly talented people. The group grew from this in several ways. First, learning to adapt to different situations (as we had Friday) on the fly in both rehearsals and the performance, and not let it break our stride was a huge accomplishment! We learned that we can handle a big stage, and that’s been a confidence boost that’s definitely carried forward, and made us hungry for more and better gigs. And then, right after we had given a solid performance, we were inspired by Duwende and the Swingles as to how much further we could go in our musical journey. That was the key moment for me, personally. Never stop pushing!
The confidence that Euphonism gained that weekend, in our musicianship, has been such a benefit, in every possible way. It has inspired us to push ourselves, our singing, our arrangements, our tech, our performance, to new levels.
I’m proud of what we accomplished that weekend, and I’m so excited about what the future has in store for us!
