My passion is choral music, and I discovered this passion in fourth grade music class. This is my fourth grade school picture. Our teachers helped us use these pictures to create ash trays as gifts for our parents, something I now find simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.
Now, after 47 years of working in the field of choral music, I have been granted a Faculty Development Leave, often called a sabbatical, to visit and learn from some of the great choirs of England, Sweden, Lithuania, and Latvia. This is Youth Choir Kamer; Riga, Latvia; Aivis Greters, principal conductor. In a way, it is Kamer that inspired this sabbatical, but more about that later.
If you know me, then you know that the best aspect of my blessed life is my gallant, adorable husband, Rick. While I've been writing to various conductors and choirs, Rick has been figuring out lodging, transportation, and, most importantly, meals.
It takes a village, and this project could never have happened without the enthusiastic support of my colleagues at the University of Houston and the Houston Symphony.
So, if you, too, are a choir nerd, or a travel nerd, or simply don't have anything better to do, I invite you to join me (virtually, of course!) on this journey of a lifetime!