While attending an Honors Choral Ensemble camp at Florida State University, my Musicianship teacher, a man who lived in Brazil, but was born in Germany, started a discussion with us about music. He talked about musicians and such, and about how he worked in one of the largest banks in his country, and made a lot of money, but quit in just a year and a half. Everyone thought him crazy, even his parents. He left his job at the bank to do music, and learn as much as he could. One thing he said really stood out in my mind. He said "You can never leave music"... he said no matter how hard he tried, we could never give it up. While in school, there were so many times when I tried to get out of chorus. However, there's always been something there that's kept me there. Music is almost a mystery to me. When I was in 10th grade, my choir was invited to Carnegie Hall to sing, and we'd be in a big mass choir with other Florida schools, and then our choir was one of two feature choirs. The other school was Andrew Dreyfoos School Of The Arts, and of course, we, little West Orange High School were a bit humbled by the idea we'd be featured with a School Of The Arts. Before we left, the principle of my school stated: "When you walk into Carnegie Hall, no one will know the name West Orange... But when you walk out, they'll never forget it." That never got to me until I attended FSU summer camps and met another Chad, who was a black bass.. he called me his arch nemesis as a joke, because I was Chad too, but I was a white tenor. On the last day of camp, he told me our 2 schools were rivals, its just that my school never knew it. He said his chorus hated ours because we "were good". I came to find out that this kid was from Andrew Dreyfoos School Of The Arts, and it was his choir that was also the feature choir in Carnegie two years before. However, our schools were so much the same in our ambitions. In fact, their Advanced Women's group is called "Belle Chanson", and ours is called "Bel Canto", and both translate into "Beautiful Music". Strange, huh? We will also see this choir again this October when we both go to University of Florida to participate in a little exchange concert. Pretty weird, huh? It reminded me of what my principle had said about us walking out and everyone remembering our name. Is the power of music this great? Do you think you could ever leave it?

--"The Big Show" Chad