YouthCUE 2022 DC
On Saturday, July 2 at the Washington DC National Cathedral, Charlotte Blais, Taleesa Fox and William Nabors raised their voices with over 100 student singers from churches around the country at the 25th Nation’s Capital Festival of Choirs Grand Concert. The Festival is produced by YouthCUE, whose stated purpose is to teach and instill the astonishing power of musical arts as a means of changing the world for the better. Sacred texts are often embedded in the choral music YouthCUE sings, and those passages, combined with beautifully crafted music, enrich the students’ experience, and will remain with them for the rest of their lives. To sing at the National Cathedral is a memory of a lifetime – the holiness, the beauty, the grandeur, the acoustics of the Cathedral are magnificent and our WHPC students took full advantage of the opportunity to ‘sing praises to God in his sanctuary’.
Before arriving in DC, the students spent hours learning and memorizing 8 choir anthems as well as preparing 5 additional anthems. Upon arriving in DC, all 100+ students rehearsed together at National City Christian Church for many hours to refine and perfect the music. The days were not filled completely with work – our group visited the Natural History Museum, the International Spy Museum and American History Museum, rode the Metro subway, toured the monuments at night, saw the pandas at the National Zoo, and day-tripped to the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis for singing and a demonstration of one of the world’s largest pipe organs.
The last evening of the trip, everyone gathered at the Cathedral for the concert accompanied by a professional orchestra. The first anthem, “The Lord Is My Light”, came to life as the playing of the orchestra swelled together with the singers’ voices, and all listening and singing felt the presence of God through the beautiful music. Each anthem was its own special offering of praise and we left DC with gratitude for the music that was made, the fun we had had, and the privilege of being a part of God’s story that is so much bigger than us.
Charlotte Blaise, Tami Blais, Pat Johnson, Taleesa Fox, Sherrie Fox, William Nabors, Anne Nabors, Emily Craven
Watch the Grand Concert:
