Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour

I would like to say that I have never done something like this before,so I don't even know how to start.Perhaps I should begin talking about my feelings about this tour.I am really happy for being a part of the II SCO tour.It's always good to make good friends and get to know other places.However,better than traveling is to get the Sphinx's goal more and more accomplished.I am a part-time music teacher(elementary,middle and high school),and went back to work in our 10 days break. After teaching a 8th grade class,I told them I was away for a month because I was touring with the SCO. As soon as I said "Sphinx",they started asking all kind of questions. They had watched the 2006 Sphinx Competition DVD a week before,and they were so interested about the organization and its programs that I had to extend that class and still couldn't asnwer all questions. I was amazed and then realized how important each SCO member is. We are role models for the new generation and hopefully years from now we will have accomplished our goal of having diversity in classical music.
Getting back to the subject....the tour was amazing!Andre and Nick rock!By the way,let me thank Nick for working on getting me a bass for the Cerritos performance. Nick, you are amazing!
Hey guys,we can't forget voting on the orchestra awards.I remember last year we did it, and it was so fun!Let's keep the tradition!Here is the list:
1-Best Orchestra Section
2-Most responsible Member
3-Best Section Leader
4-Best Concert
5-Awesome Attitute award(for the most willing to help another member)
6- The orchestra's funniest person
7- Coolest musician in the orchestra
8-Orchestra's best dancer
9-Sexiest Male
10-Sexiest Female
11- Best dressed member

I can't remember any other award.Feel free to add to the list.
I can't believe the tour is almost over....I already miss each member of the SCO(including Eddie,the bus driver).Hold your beverages!!!!We rolling!!!!

I'm so happy to be back on tour with "La Familia" after a 10 day break. The concert in Chico last night was fresh and exciting! sometimes a break is good for ideas to settle and mature, I'm very much looking forward to our next concert in Cerritos!!!

And we’re back! After about a week and a half break to recharge, we are in sunny California to finish up the final leg of the SCO Tour. With an energetic concert in Chico’s Laxson Auditorium last night, it seems that a short respite at home was just what members of the SCO needed.

Most of the orchestra had a long trip from their home towns to California. I flew from New York City. While the Harlem Quartet and our tour manager, Andre Dowell, made the trip all the way from London, England. Needless to say, upon our arrival we were all very tired. Maestro Gupton did manage to wake us up in our pre-concert rehearsal. After our usual sound check and a rehearsal with 2008 first place laureate of the Sphinx Competition, Danielle Belen, who stepped in as soloist, maestro suggested that we sightread the movements of the Tchaikovsky Serenade that are not included on our regular concert program. Personally, I love to sightread. The spontaneity of sitting down to try and create a pleasant musical experience out of something you have never seen before is invigorating. Doing it with a group like SCO that has developed a working relationship and a group sound is even more exciting. It seems that we must have inspired the Harlem Quartet as they joined us in sightreading the last movement of the Tchaikovsky at the end of rehearsal.

The energy and necessity to be alert that we had while sightreading must have carried over into our concert, because it might have been our best concert yet.

This is my second SCO tour, and each year La Familia gets closer and closer. A lot of fun unusual adventures have happened in the 3 weeks that we have been together in the tour. My first bonding experience was right in the Philly airport just a stop away from Detroit. Whitney and I spent more than 15 hours in the airport, bored out of our minds, but that time started a friendship that will continue through the years. That's the kind of amazing things that happen within La Familia. We make great music together and when we are not making music we are sharing our time together (bus rides, clubbing, Kailas's yoga classes or in the usual spot :Andre's and Nick's 'suite')cultivating new long lasting friendships. All I can say here is that I have the time of my life with the SCO, each time making better music, transforming people's life and reuniting with old and brand new friends!! I cant wait for for our Carnegie performance and I CAN'T wait to play 'roses and thornes'!(Missy) YAAAYYY!!! GO La Familia!!!!

Isaaa

This is my first tour with the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra and it's certainly been an adventure. Many wouldn't consider Elyria, OH or Bravard, NC to be exciting or exotic places but such small towns in America are what make tours colorful.
For example, the best sushi I've had in my life was at a small town shopping mall in Elyria. So good, in fact, that I went all of three times while there culminating in what was possibly the best hibachi show I could have imagined. Also while in Bravard I visited the Biltmore estate, former residence of the Vanderbilt family. The home was epic in its proportion and the grounds themselves were breathtakingly beautiful.
Possibly the most unexpected aspect of the tour so far has been the hospitality we've encountered while on the road. Being away from home for so long can be very difficult for a lot of people and so it makes all the generosity of the presenters and all those who've hosted us at their homes that much more special.
The tour hasn't been without a few hiccups, however. The Hotel was about as nightmarish to a New Yorker as Jason on Friday the 13th. Dark, dirty, and infested with bedbugs the Hotel was anybody's worst dream, but thanks to Andre and Nick we were out of there and at a new hotel in under an hour. A truly heroic feat considering it was 11:00 pm on a Friday in a college town.
We are now headed back to New York which is home to me and I'm excited to show some of the out of towners a good time and true New York experience. And the band plays on.