Lehigh Choral Union

I was supposed to write this for a Lehigh student blog, but the job never really materialized. I have one more post in the can that I will share. Enjoy!

During the summer after graduating from high school, I was recruited through e-mail to try out for Lehigh Choral Arts. I had been in a school chorus since fourth grade, so this appealed to me as an activity that I should continue once I entered college. I did not know what exactly to expect in the audition for choir, but I thought I could follow the conductor’s lead to get into the University Choir.

Unfortunately, I had a harder time than I did when entering high school singing the scales, as I usually do not like to sing on my own. My audition was short, which I did not consider to be a good thing. As I learned later from choir members, I should have come prepared with a song, similar to an “American Idol” audition. I found out later that night along with everyone else that I would be singing in the Choral Union.

At first, I was disappointed, but this meant that I got to spend the first weekend of school sleeping in my room rather than being away on a retreat with the rest of the choir. I feel like this time was crucial to developing some of my first friendships at Lehigh and experiencing time around campus. Sure, I would have made friends in choir, but it was also important to know other people in my hall and freshman orientation group, along with having the same experience of the days before classes as most other freshmen.

While I thought that I would be disappointed to not be in the “better” choir like I was in high school, it has turned out to be a good time. The Choral Union is made up of a small number of Lehigh students in comparison to residents of the Lehigh Valley. This was not desirable to me as a freshman because I wanted to meet more people around my age. However, I have always been one to relate better and have deeper conversations with my parents’ friends and other older adults. Thanks to a change in policy, Choral Union members and choir alumni were able to travel with the choir on their biannual trip outside of the country, so I was still able to experience and sing in China and Portugal at the end of my freshman and junior years, respectively.

Lehigh Choral Arts in Portugal and an introduction

First, an introduction: I'm Brandon Franz and these are my thoughts on my interests and activities.

I was on tour with Lehigh Choral Arts from May 6 - May 15 in Portuguese cities Lisbon, Sesimbra, Palmela, Évora, Cascais, Sintra, and Estoril. We sang at three different churches and a palace, and as Doc said, each performance was better than the last. I thoroughly enjoyed them despite singing much less pieces than members of University Choir. The last performance was moving and sounded great.

The best day in Lisbon was after we were dropped off at Rossio Square for a free afternoon and evening. I had a liter of beer with lunch, we found a free wine tasting store after that, then two bottles of beer, and another liter with dinner at Republica de Cerveja, the Republic of Beer. The beer that runs Portugal is Super Bock. Another defining quality of Portugal is their hamburgers with mystery meat and an egg. For a foreign country, they sure produce some great hamburgers, especially at four in the morning.

Sergio was a good tour guide, taking us through churches, palaces, and city tours. Most of the group took his suggestion to atttend a soccer game, in which Lisbon's worst team out of three, Belinenses, lost 5-0 to Braga in Liga Sagres, the other beer that had high sponsorship in Portugal.

I had two casino experiences: in Lisbon, I lost 70 euro; in Estoril (apparently the biggest casino in Europe), I won 20 euro, both times playing roulette and discovering video roulette. I also found 20 euro on the ground one day, so that's a decent total. There was graffiti everywhere, except on public transportation, it seemed. It was a great trip that we were able to enjoy because we stayed in one hotel the whole time and had some free time to work with, both unlike in China.