By Brandon Sawyer
Dr. Brad Holmes
There are two reasons I look forward to the month of August: Football and All-State choir camp. This year I made the Mixed All-State Choir after being in the All-State Men's Choir last year. I was blessed to be able to work with one of the finest conductors I have ever worked with, Dr. Brad Holmes.
Dr. Holmes was an incredibly gifted musician and person, he knew exactly how to get his point across to the choir and he did so with absolute precision. Unlike any conductor I've worked with, Dr. Holmes used the craziest analogies anyone could think of, even coming up with our motto for the week: Great artists have great imaginations. Dr. Holmes definitely had an incredible imagination.
Our choice of music this year was phenomenal. Our song-set ranged from a piece sung in Russian dialect to one sung in an ancient method of "shape-singing". This method involved the use of heavy dosages of forward singing and brightness that gave our choir the appearance and sound of one hundred elementary school children singing at their first concert. Overall our music fit us well as a choir and I could not have been happier with Dr. Holmes' choice of music.
For me, singing in such a camp is the perfect release from every day life. There truly is something special about music and I am so thankful that I have a passion for it. It brings out the best in me and there is no better place to experience that than at All-State choir camp. The beautiful thing about camp is that each and every person there is experiencing the same thing you are. Because of this one is able to make best friends with someone in less than a day. Music brings people together - simply put. I am so thankful for the experiences I had at All-State camp and I hope that many more after me will share the experience.