Sunday….Sunday, the day to relax.

Yeah, more like, the day to do massive amounts of homework and fight off the intensive urge to nap the day away. However, this Sunday, although there was homework and napping involved, was different from most Sundays. This Sunday I attended On Wings of Love. Actually I was apart of On Wings of Love, which is even cooler!

On Wings of Love was a concert to benefit Angel Food East. Angel Food East has been providing and delivering free, individual, nutritious hot meals for people living with HIV/AIDS in Ulster County for the past 15 years. Meals are provided to those regardless of age, gender, race, religious affiliation, economic situation or sexual preference. This independent, non-denominational program is run from a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Kingston (where the benefit concert took place.) The program costs approximately $40,000 a year to run and is funded solely by grants and donations. This concert was the 6^th On Wings of Love Benefit Concert, and through these shows, over $14,000 has been raised.

The night had many amazing (as well as impressive I might add) performers who donated their time and talents for this cause. I would like to start off with our emcee being Ron Nyswaner. If that name sounds familiar to you, it may be because he wrote the screenplay for Philadelphia, a 1993 film revolving around HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, and widespread attitudes concerning gays and homophobia. This movie starred actors such as Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards, and Antonio Banderas.

Let me talk about the OWOL 2008 chorus! I sang in the On Wings of Love chorus, because I was asked to by the show director, Liz Toleno. Liz is busily enjoying her life by being a musical director, accompanist, vocal coach, and flut/piano teacher in The Hudson Valley and then some. Also, Liz works here at SUNY New Paltz as well, working as an accompanist in my Voice 1 class as well as working in the pit for the musicals. At any rate, I received an e-mail from her a while back, describing this benefit concert and what it entailed. I was free so I accepted full-heartily! I feel like I never have time to do events outside of campus, so now that time allowed, I really wanted to get involved!

The OWOL chorus opened up with the choral arrangement of “Everlasting Melody.” The soloist in the beginning was by an eleven-year-old boy named Thomas Netter, who had a smiley disposition on his face and the gift of song in his heart. He was phenomenal! He hit these high notes like no other! He was singing in my section with the altos. Darn tootin’ impressive! Here’s a video on YouTube of ANOTHER chorus singing “Everlasting Melody,” because, well, I couldn’t tape myself doing it now could I? I just want you to get a feel for what it sounds like! It’s quite catchy and I feel this chorus does a nice job with it

The next performer I’d like to talk about is Kevin Archambault, who sang “I’m Not Afraid of Anything.” He has several Off Broadway credits, such as Love Letters, Young & Beautiful or Hello I’m Old. National Tours include: West Side Story, Bye Bye, Birdie. Here’s actually a video of his song.

Sorry I’m so far back, and the zoom isn’t at its best. The reason I’m sitting all the way back there is because after the On Wings of Love chorus sang the opening number, we all dispersed for any seats available in the back.

There were other famous performers, such as James Dybas, who was featured in eight original Broadway shows, in regional theatres and cabaret throughout the country, on TV & in films. He’s a 6 time recipient of the Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award, and is a longstanding member of Actors Equity. He sang a Medley of “At Long Last Love,” “Give Me the Simple Life,” and “Feeling Good.” It was full of emotion and the crowd loved him.

Another wonderful WONDERFUL duo, who I wished I taped, was Aysa and Ron Morehead. I actually searched them on google, to see if they had a resume of their work, but I found Ron’s myspace? It’s actually pretty informative of what he’s been involved in, his family, and well, his life. So if you wanna check it out, here it is.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=121763337

An act that I DID tape was the Cast of Anything Goes from Coleman High School singing a choral arrangement of “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” So here, you can see it and hear it.

Well, the OWOL ended the concert by us singing “Make Them Hear You.” It’s a really beautiful song with touching lyrics, that can definitely pertain to this cause. Here’s a version of it on Youtube, that I felt did it justice. This is from Wayzata Choirs in MN. They don’t have visual, but the music is BEATIFUL! JUST LISTEN!

I just want to mention, that because this event did take place in Kingston, I did have to drive to it. Luckily I have a car. It’s approximately a 28 minute drive. However, I could have carpooled with people if I didn’t have an auto-mobile. I did drive a freshman in the Theatre Department here named Annette Storckman, who takes singing lessons with Liz Toleno. I’m really glad I was able to get to know her via transportation. We also sang the same part together in the concert. It’s always nice meeting new people and learning from them. For example, she was writing in a personalized, decked-out, marble notebook about ideas for screen plays, and I couldn’t help but be inspired. Even though college can be so busy, the work load didn’t crush her creativity. It makes me just want to sit down and write in my journal for hours with music blasting. Ya know? Plus, she worked at The Renaissance Fair, so I was asking about the audition process and how she liked the experience. I hope to talk with her more in the future.

On that note, On Wings of Love was a giant success and a wonderful benefit to be apart of. I was honored I could make it and be involved.

(If you would like to volunteer please contact Angel Food East @ 845-331-6538. Drivers, cooks, and helpers are always needed.)

Saturday night was GIRL’S NIGHT! So it was just me and my best friend Renee Levine. We’ve both been “hella” busy, as Renee, the Californian native would say. Therefore, we wanted to hang out and get a chance to talk. We haven’t seen each other in a dog’s age. Since we were both finished with our obligations at 5pm, we planned to meet up and then decided we wanted to go to this event called Dance Evolution 2008, The Joker’s Revenge.

Dance Evolution was an event of all sorts that took place at the New Paltz high school, which was a 3 minute drive to get there! So close! Even if you didn’t have a car, they had shuttles leaving from the Haggerty Administration Building circle on campus, so you could make it to the event on time and without paying a cent! However the event was 4 bucks if you lived on campus and 8 bucks if you lived off…so not ENTIRELY free. I drove Renee, my friend Akeem, who lives in the same suite as my brother at UAlbany, Angie, and Lisa, Angie’s roommate. Dance Evolution was SUPPOSED to start at 6pm “sharp,” but there were major technical difficulties and it almost started an hour later than anticipated! To be honest, that was a little frustrating. This is no fault to anyone, especially the performers. Heck, I’m sure it was frustrating for them too, but it was a while to sit in the audience and wait for the show to start. At any rate, everything turned out alright. The event had several entertaining acts, as well as an enthused audience. Let me show you!

Below are several videos! The first one is the National Anthem sung by Paula (I didn’t get her last name) and the black National Anthem.

Video of M’Powered! 9-17 year olds dancing hip hop and African dance! This dance group is A-MA-ZING!

Video of Culture Shock 1^st part

Video of Culture Shock 2nd part

This guy rapped a song called “Bubble Butt.” Obviously he could have sang, “Mary had a Little Lamb,” and the lady audience members would have still loved him.

Then after the concert, Renee and I were starving so we drove into town and decided to try this new sushi place. It was called Hokkaido. The restaurant was a cute little place and we were excited to get a nice meal, but uh, we couldn’t find the door. There were stairs on the side of the restaurant, but no doorway. So we actually walked around the building a couple of times until we finally found the entrance around the corner. AH. So we sat down, ordered some endamame, and some rolls. For those who don’t know endamame is a healthy appetizer. Here, I’ll copy and paste what Wikipedia says about them: “endamame is a preparation of baby soybeans in the pod commonly found in Japan, China and Korea. The pods are boiled in water together with condiments such as salt, and served whole.” I ordered the common California Roll and the Shitaki Avocado Roll: both hit the spot!

Then after we had some “us” time to talk and catch up on each other’s lives and thoughts, we went back to Renee’s apartment on Main Street, which she shares with three other people. I changed into my pj’s which I brought from my room and jumped on the couch with Renee to watch Thirteen going on Thirty. I bought that movie over the summer and haven’t really had a chance to watch it yet. It was an uplifting chick flick, but there were parts of it that were SO SAD! However, it ends nicely, thank the lord. It stars Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo and Judy Greer. I really love Jennifer Garner. I find her acting to be so genuine. Anyway, it was a nice ending to a nice night. Our girl’s night, sleepover was a success!

Here’s the trailer for this movie!

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2209546521/

In the morn we got up at 8am since Renee had work at 10:00AM and the Bistro, right down the street, was calling our names for a hot meal. So we got all freshened up and ready for some breakfast. The Bistro is always SUPER CROWDED so we wanted to get there early. Never have I ever walked into Bistro and sat down right away. There is ALWAYS a wait, because it is just that well known. However, today, we made history, by being seated right away. We were right by the door, but we were sitting! We both ordered the Breakfast Special, which is 2 eggs any way you like, homefries and 2 pieces of wheat toast, all for a little under $2!! Isn’t that amazing? It’s handy for all us poor college students, that’s for sure. Anyway, as soon as we were delivered our meal, the power went out….I’m not kidding here. The power just went, Ka-poot. So I saw another historical moment: The Bistro had to actually TURN DOWN customers, because they wouldn’t seat people until the power went back on. Crazy! And it wasn’t just The Bistro that lost power- it was all along Main Street! Starbucks had a sign on the door saying it was closed due to the power outage, and I know my friend who lived on Main Street didn’t have power…insane! While we were eating Renee looked at me and asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I wasn’t sure, but she said, “I’m thankful we got our food before the power went out!” Wow were we on the same wavelength with that one!

I took a picture of some of these robots that were on the wall of the Bistro. They were called Junk Bots and they were on display for purchase. Interesting. Renee’s favorite was the robot that had a body similar to the shape of a piece of bread. Do you see it?

So I went out to eat a lot, at least one meal each day of this weekend, but it was fun and worth it! Plus I got to spend it with good company.

Alright, mucho sleepy. Must go to bedy bye! Night all! <3