Camerata in St Louis Day 2

On day 2 we started with the science museum. I floated between groups of kids but for the blog I’ll post mostly just pics of Corbin’s group

My favorite art like…ever. I like to think the inspiration for this masterpiece was a teenager who was just asked to do a menial task and they threw their head back and groaned in response 😂😂




Had to document my shoes on Charlie lol. They went great with her athletic leggings hahaha (her garment bag with concert attire was left behind in the classroom so she had to make do with what we could gather for the competition) 






Warming up for the World Strides competition 

The sound on the stage was DEAD. Only the basses in the back under the shell could hear and they sounded amazing. Mr Collett is a wonderful instructor and used their performance to teach the kids and help them learn and improve from their experience.  They cannot hear one another well but the conductor CAN, so if they want to play well, they need to follow him with exactness. 

The kids played some complicated music. One being a piece that Chamber played last fall. 


This is a still shot from a video of Neal R catching food being dropped into his mouth baby bird style from the floors above. Great fun. I am in full suppport of this kind of entertainment. 


St Louis Zoo at night? Yes please? The zoo has a glow theme at night so I got a by chance of glow sticks and glow bracelets and brought my glow-copter sling shot toy for the kids. 

Sadly, there were no animals out at night

Instead, the zoo was turned into a lantern festival, which I thought was awesome, but the majority of the kids disagreed. 





We walked around and admired the cool things, and half the group went to the “sea lion show with no sea lions” but the other half was not interested. Determined to crack this tough crowd, we headed gif the train. More glowsticks, Gum, and a blue tooth speaker came out of Magic Meg’s backpack and I started blasting C’mon Ride the Train by Quad City DJ’s. Even the grumpiest grumps got on board, avc then once we took off, Nokia by Drake brought that kiddie train full of teens to life 😂 By the end of the train ride (and many hip hop song along jams later) they were all dancing and hollering in their seats and laughing. It was definitely the highlight of the zoo for a lot of us. 

It’s amazing to me that they were not impressed by these really cool light up displays, but a 42 year old mom belting out “Is it Stacy? Is it Becky? Is it Keisha? Is it Ashley?” Made everyone lighten up. Whatever it takes, man. 

I observed that the kids in chamber made a little less inhibited abd a little more easily dazzled. A little more grateful and little less anxious. I don’t know if it’s age, personalities, better personal connection to chaperones, experience/more seasoned travelers, more years together as an ensemble, or what. Probably a combination of all these factors and more. But there was a noticeable difference in Chamber’s culture of fun and easy self entertainment vs the majority in Camerata always waiting with hesitation for things to be more impressive, more entertaining, more, more, more. It wasn’t awful, but compared to the week end before, a lot more work to maintain a cheerful morale. 








Games at the hotel. The chaperones put together a near-midnight walk to Insomnia cookies for anyone who wanted to go. This was a fun side quest. We met a woman running a nonprofit cupcake stand to support people struggling to keep stable housing. Several of the kids skipped their ice cream and donated their treat money to her cause instead. Way to go kids! 



Downtown St Louis at night is not the same as Bentonville at night. It wasn’t sketchy, but it wasn’t sleepy little small town square either. A couple cars zoomed by in a drag race and one car backfired. The kids thought it was gunshots and threw themselves against the building and ducked to the ground. We had a good talk on the walk back about the difference between being safe and feeling safe. One student mentioned some reasons they don’t feel safe are because of the racial differences. This was a vulnerable and honest comment that sparked a really good, open conversation about biases and micro aggressions. A couple kids in orchestra who are not white shared their thoughts. The dialogue was important and organic and hopefully impactful. 

After ice cream, there was more lobby fun until room checks. I had three rooms of girls who wanted to still be together and talk and not wake up the one or two asleep inside. We gathered and sat on the floor in our corner of the hallway until 2:30am when I made everyone call it a night. A few conflicts were resolved, they ranked the cello section boys based on their idea of who appears most kissable, a poem was written, gut busting laughter happened, they played hot seat and also love bombed each other with compliments, snacks were consumed, and a graduating seniors were emotional and shared happy memories and wisdom with their underclass-mates. At 2am, everything they did all day was “the best” and “so much fun” and they only remembered loving everything abd never being bored at all. Another fun was to use girl math! 😂