inside Rhodes

It’s pretty amazing to sit down and write the final blog of our tour. The three of us (Nicole, Laura, and me) have all gotten a wonderful new experience in music that is not possible to receive in the classroom. Before I write about our adventures in Oklahoma City and Belfast, TN, I want to extend yet another THANK YOU to the CODA program at Rhodes College. Without your help, none of this would have been possible. Additionally, another word of thanks needs to go out to all of the churches, non-profits, and families who have been more than gracious to us over the past month. You have supported us is so many ways that it’s rather impossible to offer all of our thanks over a blog post. Finally, a big thank you to Rhodes College Music Department. From the beginning, you all supported the notion of a tour and helped us get there whether it was through ideas for performance venues or through helping select a repertoire. But most of all, I want to thank everyone involved in our tour for simply believing in us. Many churches and non-profits opened their doors to us without ever hearing us play, which takes a lot of faith. Additionally, everyone we came in contact with supported our decision to take this month and share our passion with others. In that regard, I also need to extend a thanks to all of our parents! Thanks so much for supporting us in our musical passions and helping us on this, sometimes crazy, path we have chosen (or should I say, that has chosen us?). So to everyone involved…thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

After our performances in North and South Carolina, we drove the 10 hours back to Memphis, slept, then drove the 7 hours to Oklahoma City (OKC), the hometown of Laura McLain. We made some…interesting…stops along the way and were greeted with a warm welcome by Laura’s fam. We arrived on a Friday afternoon with our two performances scheduled for Sunday morning and Monday night. Sunday morning we performed at Nichols Hills United Methodist, Laura’s home congregation. I was particularly inspired by the organist for the church, Dr. Godding. It was refreshing to hear the quality of music that Dr. Godding produces from hymns, preludes, postludes, etc… We also got the chance to see some familiar “Rhodents” at the church service. Dr. Sharp (the former head of the music department at Rhodes) and his family were all present for the service. It was great to see a familiar face in the congregation and get to catch up with him about things going on in all of our lives. We presented our full concert on Monday night at an assisted living facility in OKC. The concert went well and was well received by the audience. After the concert we talked with the audience members and were startled to see how many Rhodes/Southwestern connections there were. Rhodes graduates were a part of at least two families in the audience and there were even more Memphis connections.

So if we came in on Friday and left the following Friday, what all did we do in between?! OKC is an amazing city with a thriving culture built around diversity, creativity, family, values, and a welcoming attitude. Laura’s fam was a perfect representation of this. They did an amazing job showing us the sites, taking us to local eateries, preparing amazing meals, and encouraging us to get out and explore on our own. We did so many things that carry so many stories, so I will briefly list some of our major activities and let you imagine just how fun they were!

We went to the Red Earth Festival, a celebration of Native American heritage and culture (video below). We climbed rocks at the Rocktown Climbing Gym. We walked the canal and rode a random haunted roller coaster-thing. We gambled (very legally) at an 18+ casino. We went to art museums, the bombing memorial, and antique stores. We ate at all the local places, including a great burger joint! We played Yahtzee….often. We took plane rides with Laura’s sister, Mary. We went to see The Drowsy Chaperon at the local theater. We listened to live music in the park, went shopping, and learned to navigate OKC. Nicole took a ride on Stuart’s (Laura’s brother) motorcycle. We played with Foxy (Laura’s dog) a lot. We ate at the famous Nichols Hills drug store for breakfast.

I’m sure there are many things I’ve left out, but I think I covered the big ones. However, that list just shows how much fun we had while in OKC. After our performances and leisure time with the McLains, we said a farewell or two and headed back to Memphis to prepare for our final performance in Belfast, TN. What a way to end our tour! The hospitality shown to us by the Thomas family and their church was amazing. They fed us very well and provided us great accommodations and support. Our performance in Belfast was much different from anything else we had done on tour thus far. Since the church musicians were out of town, our ensemble led worship for the small congregation as well as offered a small concert after Pastor Thomas’ sermon. Like at all of our other performance venues, we felt the love in Belfast! The congregation received our music very well and really seemed to appreciate our presence. One major surprise for us is that the Thomas family is also Rhodes affiliated! Both Pastor Thomas and his daughter attended Rhodes. When we drove up to the church on Sunday morning…guess what we saw tacked to the front door:

We felt right at home eating and visiting with the Thomas family and participating in their worship service. As with any of the performance locations, we would gladly do it again! After the service, we all said our goodbyes in a parking lot and went our separate ways. Nicole drove back to North Carolina and is preparing for her semester abroad (have fun…take lots of pictures and SEND POSTCARDS!!) Laura and I drove back to Memphis. Laura is back in OKC and I’m currently sitting in an attic with 3 other college students in Manchester, New Hampshire. I will be participating in an educational program called Breakthrough Collaborative and Laura will be searching for a summer job.

All in all, this has been an amazing opportunity for all of us. We have learned so much about ourselves, others, music, performing, travel, money, fundraising, communication, professionalism, improvisation, other religions, other cultures, and so much more. We did this for more than ourselves, though. This tour was also about every single person that heard our music. Music is our passion, but it means much less to us unless we are sharing it with other people. We are so grateful for everyone who came out to the 13 or 14 performances we had over the month we were on the road. We truly hope you enjoyed the music and found something inspirational inside our performances. Finally, we hope that we represented Rhodes and our fabulous music department well. Everywhere we went, we tried our best to spread a little bit of Rhodes around. Hopefully we will have inspired someone to take interest in our pretty amazing liberal arts school in Memphis, Tennessee where “our ivy is in a league of its own.” Nonetheless, I think I speak for us all when I say that something special happened over the past month between the three of us. We formed a close bond with each other through music that reached farther than we had ever imagined on that night we brought the idea of a tour up at a late night study party in Hassell Hall.

I hope you have enjoyed reading our blog over the past few weeks and I hope you will ask us plenty of questions when we return to Rhodes or over the summer through email, phone calls, or through the blog! Many thanks and appreciations!