As I write this, I’m sitting in the J Bar, at the first floor of the Omni Hotel, right in the middle of downtown Jacksonville. The convention so far has consisted of a Friday night quartet contest and a chorus contest this afternoon, with the quartet finals and afterglow (and subsequent singing to 4am) to come tonight. And so far, I’m pleased with the results from the quartet, and semi-pleased with the chorus’s effort.

The quartet (rather, trio) was able to sing with the infamous Keith Hopkins on Friday night. With our bass absent, we could not compete, but sang for score only. I’d say we had a lot of fun and were nice and relaxed. And, lo and behold, our scores were higher than they’ve ever been. Funny how that works…

The chorus was down to half power, as we had only one tenor, and a total of 16 singing on stage. There were issues at the very beginning with tuning and unit sound, the same problems that the chorus normally has. It’s inconsistency that plagues this chorus, or so it seems.

Now summer begins. 5 weeks off with a trip to Boston on the horizon. Visits to Orlando, Gainesville, Daytona Beach, St. Augustine, and maybe Savannah, GA could come up in the next 5 weeks, the first two of which are definite within the next 10 days. I’ll be around, running, sleeping in, going to the beach, and doing everything that summer holds in store. And I cannot wait.

–jl–