Day 1 Pensacola and Mobile

We've finally settled in at the Holiday Inn, and the kids and staff have had a fabulous day!
 Our wonderful bus driver, Bruce is a N'awlins native, and he has been warm and friendly and SAFE!. On the bus ride we watched the new(er) Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, and the singers had some quiet time to  get to know each other better and to work on their own music.

Our first gig of the tour took place at the Azalea Trace Retirement Community, which is one of the most important types of concerts we do, in my opinion. After warm-up Paige and I talked to the singers about the audience, and how music can connect people across generations and cultures. There was not an empty seat in the house, and I overheard several comments from audience members: They're so young! They're so little. What an amazing sound! I could listen to this all day!



Another beautiful part of this type of concert is seeing people of all ages experience music they've never heard before, yet they still connect. The kids sang Kyrie and Agnus Dei from the Little Jazz Mass, and while the audience members didn't know the music several of them knew the texts because they are taken from the Catholic mass tradition. There was even a lady "singing" along! Plus Paige did a great job at connecting the singers and audience members thorough a Q and A session.

My favorite part of the show actually happened after the show. Several audience members stayed around to talk to the kids and staff, and those interactions were sweet and funny and really touching.


After a delicious dinner of barbecue and blueberry cobbler (!!!!) we hit the road for Mobile, Alabama toward our hotel. It's our tradition to reflect on the day and talk about our favorite parts, so once we got to the hotel it was nice to hear how the singers felt, and many of them had special memories to share. After the reflection we had one more memory to make!

click for Rebecca's birthday song

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