Philadelphia Girls Choir

At the beginning of April the Etude section of the Philadelphia Girls Choir had a field trip to NYC and I was a chaperone. There were 40 girls, ages 7-12, and 6 adults. It was nutty. But fun. We hopped on a bus from Philly and arrived at One World Observatory, where the girls gave a 20 minute concert. It was great because it’s the first time I’ve heard them perform a lot of the songs that I hear sung around the house.

Here’s the group. Sophie is in the front, third from the right.

Here’s a short video of the group. Unfortunately most of the video I took was too long to upload here.

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After the performance the chaperones took their group of girls and toured the building, which had pretty amazing views.

Here’s my group of girls.

After that we took everyone for lunch in a food court, which was absolute chaos. I’ve never been so paranoid about losing a child.

The day was nice, but cold. We walked around the City, saw the Statue of Liberty from a distance, and did some touristy shopping.

Here’s the whole group in front of the building they sang at the top of. It was a pretty good day and great experience for Sophie.

We got back to Philly around 7pm and were completely exhausted.

This year Sophie auditioned for and made it into the Philadelphia Girls Choir, a pretty prestigious choir in the City, which is associated with the world renowned Philadelphia Boys Choir. She started with the group in September, and had her first concert in December. It was held at the Episcopal Cathedral on Rittenhouse Square and was amazing! There were 750 tickets available and they sold out.

Here she is at the house in her dress before leaving. She was so excited and also so nervous.

You can see her here, second row on the right.

The girls were allowed to audition for either a solo or a dance. Sophie got a dance part (back facing the camera with the braid). During one of the songs she stepped down and did a dance along with the song.

The choir is made up of three sections: Etude (ages 7+), Cantata (ages 10+), and Concerto (ages 12+). Each section sang a few songs on their own, and then the entire choir sang together. Each group was more impressive than the next. In the picture above Sophie is second row, center.

A shot of the entire choir with all three sections. Sophie is center, about second row.

Afterward she was so excited and happy, it was so great to see.

Doug, Vicki, Quinn, Carley, Mom, Dad, Becky, Ari, and Lydia all came to the concert and afterward we all went out to dinner. Here Dave and I are with Sophie in Rittenhouse Square before dinner. It was extra festive walking through the park, which was all decorated and ready for Christmas.