Concert is tonight. It's going to be awesome.
Travis rocks.
Beth Moore will be there.
Max Lucado will appear on the DVD.
The music is fantastic.
And somehow it has come to pass that Heidi, Leanne, Christy, Joli, and I (along with 8 others) will each be singing on their own individual microphone.
On the live CD/DVD...
...for Travis Cottrell.
Dude.
Just chilling out in Atlanta...
Spent yesterday hanging out and not doing a WHOLE lot, then spent today rehearsing and hanging out with the band and praise team.
And when I say "rehearsing" with them, I mean sitting and watching them rehearse.
Ok, ok...I actually sang a bit with the praise team (along with Christy, Leanne, Heidi, and Joli) before the BIG rehearsal. But it was great.
Here are a few pictures of the church:
IT'S HUUUUUGE
Here's the church right before we drove into the lot...
As we're coming down the driveway...
The WALKWAY between buildings, over the driveway...
The 7,400 seat auditorium.
A picture of part of the stage and choir loft.
And ONE of the studios they'll be utilizing this weekend...that is built into the church...
Yeah. THIS IS BIG.
Wish you could be here!!! And if you can't, then BUY THE DVD, because it is literally going to be SO awesome.
For real.
Good news!
Our plane did not crash.
Phew!
Now, why would we automatically assume that it would? Cause we're just scaredy cats like that. Christy is espescially terrified of flying...but I would be lying if I didn't say I was a liiiiiiitle scared of it myself. I'm not quite as terrified as my wife, but I tell you what...it's just down-right scary to be in a tube of metal floating 500 MPH above the ground at 20,000 feet.
So that's the good news...we didn't die.
We are thankful to be in Atlanta, safe and sound, and thankful for my parents who are watching the kids while we are gone. Apparantly the kids aren't missing us as much as we are missing them. Before we left, Noah kept telling us to, "Go get on the plane, Daddy. Go to the plane, Mom!" And this is the dance they were doing when we dropped them off:
A birdy told me they all had a Wii tournament until 1:45AM that night.
I can't say I'm surprised.
Off to hang out with Travis...
Last week was a pretty fantastic week.
Firstly, we spent Monday and Tuesday (as well as Friday) in San Diego preparing for a kids choir show--but not just any kids choir show--Word Music actually came out from Nashville to video tape our kids putting on Celeste Clydesdale's newest musical "G.P.S.". This is a big deal for us because we absolutely adore the Clydesdale's (husband is David T.) and the stuff that they do. Celeste writes incredible, fresh, fun, and clever kids musicals and David T. writes stuff for adult choir and orchestra. We use their stuff ALL THE TIME, so to be asked to do a project like this was a HUGE honor. Christy and her team of leaders worked very hard to prepare the kids for this event, even to the point of learning two musicals at once during the Christmas season. It was an UNDERTAKING, to say the least.
And they ROCKED it.
Word Music couldn't have been more pleased. Celeste said we were the best kids choir she has ever heard. The kids knocked it out of the park.
It was so fulfilling and fun. What an experience!
We are probably going to be joining forces with them again in the future...which is just a dream-come-true for Christy and I. It is so amazing to work with true aritsts like that...
Secondly, my BFF asked me to write string parts for his live album (recording this weekend in Atlanta, GA), so I worked my tooshie off getting those to him before we had to go back down to San Diego for the GPS taping. I also finished another project for the Male Chorale at CBU this week.
It has been busy!
But you know what?
It has been AWESOME.
I wouldn't trade the insanity of our schedule for anything. I mean, it IS crazy, but so worth it. We were slated to be in San Diego on last Friday-Tuesday, but I KNEW I needed to get work done all day Tuesday in my studio (my church office does not have the proper equipment/hardware/software anymore) because of the upcoming projects, so I took Nathaniel with me on Monday night after the kids choir rehearsal and DROVE HOME. I worked until about 2AM, slept until 6AM, got up, worked some more, took Nathaniel to school, worked until 230PM, picked N up from school and drove back down to SD to be there for the dress rehearsal and to pick up Christy and Noah. As troublesome as the driving is, it is STILL worth it.
Am I crazy?
Maybe so...but I know how to do what it takes to get a job done...and sometimes it just takes that level of commitment to succeed.
I look back at the last year and I just marvel at what has transpired in my life and the lives of my little family. We are so blessed.
I am officially back ON the grid...
I am signing off for a while to write some charts for my BFF, Travis.
The only way you'd possibly get a hold of me is to send an angel of the Lord with good tidings of great joy.
...or call Christy.
Wow.
I almost titled this entry "The Right Man", but quickly changed it...phew! That was a close one...
Neil Patrick Harris hosted SNL this weekend and it was by FAR the funniest show I've seen in a long time. The show experienced great success during the elections, for good reason, but since has been struggling.
Let this just be a lesson to all that the RIGHT HOST has a huge impact on the outcome of the show.
The best parts of the night??
How can I pick? There were so many!!
A 4.5 earthquake hit San Bernardino tonight at 7:49PM.
Thank goodness so far there have been no injuries reported.
We felt it out here in Burbank...I thought my studio had grown some wheels. It felt like we were being pushed around slowly on a giant piano dolly.
It felt sooo weird.
Anyone else feel the quake?
As a writer of music--which is inherently an auditory art form--I like to actually HEAR the music I write.
This doesn't often happen in this digital age, where email and FTP sites allow us to transfer music back and forth digitally. Most of the year I write for OTHER composers/orchestrators, and so on...and don't necessarily get recordings of what I write.
However, last night I went to the Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood to hear a friend of mine perform a big-band chart that we arranged together. It was completely exhilarating and nerve-wracking. The whole time they were playing the chart (which sounded AWESOME, by the way), I felt nervous. It potentially had to do with the fact that he introduced me and talked about the fact that I arranged it with him right before they played it...maybe that was it. Or maybe it's been a long time since I've sat and listened to something that I've written performed live--AND NOT been a part of the rehearsals or preparation.
Hmm.
It was great...and far exceeded my expectations.
Honestly, there is just no greater thrill than to hear something you created come to LIFE like that.
And after saying that, I feel a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein...
Happy New Year.
It's 2009.
WOW.
I can't believe it's here.
So, in order to stay sane, and not have everything in my life blur together in one giant whirlwind, I'm interested to take a look back at:
What happened ten years ago?
In 1999:
-Everybody was scared about the Y2K bug.
(what a downer, btw...that whole thing was LAME)
-Daniel and Christy got married.
(We will be celebrating our 10-year anniversary in November)
-I entered my Junior year at APU, and took a year off from being in UCO.
-Shakespeare In Love wins best picture at the 71st Academy Awards (REALLY!???! REALLY?!!???!)
-The Columbine High School Massacre took place on April 20th, shocking the nation
-I screwed up my first Christmas tree with my new bride of only about a month. (let's just say, it fell over)
-Napster made it's debut on the web
Before I became highly aware of copyright law and it's affect on me and those around me as a musician, I downloaded a few things, including the Tron soundtrack (???)
-I turned 20 years old, 6 days before my wedding.
In addition to celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary, we will also be celebrating my 30th birthday this year. (Ugh.) However, the GOOD news is that Christy wants to take
me to see SNL live in NYC. WAHOO!!
So what were you doing in 1999?
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