California, here we come!

Pictured: Chamber, Rose, & Thorn choirs combined

The 2023-24 school year is coming to a close! Before finals start up, our chamber choir is flying to California for a week of music and magic. Thursday through Saturday will be spent recording original compositions by Chamber Choir singers and alums at Skywalker Ranch, and then Sunday and Monday we'll be in San Francisco for sightseeing and a concert at Calvary Presbyterian Church. For those who attended last week's concert, "A New Dawn" featured all seven pieces that we are planning to record in the studio. 

This trip is bound to be fun, fulfilling, and full of surprises; We're glad to be taking you with us.

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What is SKYWALKER RANCH?

Located 40 minutes north of San Francisco, Skywalker Ranch is the pastoral home to Lucasfilm’s celebrated sound design, mixing and audio post-production facility, Skywalker Sound- where we will be spending 3 action-packed (and only slightly exhausting) days.

Skywalker Sound occupies the 153,000-square-foot Technical Building, which features a world-class scoring stage, six feature mix stages, 15 sound design suites, 50 editing suites, an ADR stage, two Foley stages, and the 300-seat Stag Theater. The property also includes cows, bees, wild turkeys, the iconic Main House, and the beautiful Lake Ewok. Security is high, and photos of the grounds are very strictly enforced, but do yourself a favor and check out more photos online. The grounds are absolutely beautiful!!

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GTAs Ian and Colin had no choice but to be in my airport photo op.

DAY ONE, DONE! (MORE TO COME)

Today was devoted primarily to travel! Meeting at PDX Airport at 10am for a 11:45 flight, all of us who were on any of the international tours in prior years marveled at how short the flight to Oakland was in comparison! 

We rented a small fleet of vans to transport our choir, and drove an hour from the airport in Oakland to our hotel in Nicasio. We checked in, ate a quick pizza dinner, and then headed to Skywalker Ranch to sort out the paperwork, and get microphone setups configured for the following two days of sessions. I'm excited to share photos and stories from our recording sessions in the days following, check back in tomorrow afternoon for another update!