Author: Trent Slade

So remember how my last post was about musical theatre? Well I’m in my high school’s spring musical this year. I haven’t really wanted to be in any of the shows in the past for various reasons, but this year I got in and I’m glad I did. This year the spring production is The Little Mermaid. I’m in ensemble.

Yesterday we performed the entire thing for a bunch of elementary school kids. They were actually a great audience. It was so weird to perform when people actually laughed and applauded and what not, but not in a bad way. Their favorite songs were Under the Sea and “the chefs'(a.k.a. Les Poisons), which is unsurprising since those are the two funniest and most fast paced songs. In Under the Sea, we went into the audience and danced with the kids and in Les Poisons, there was a bunch of screaming and falling as we did our best to “Catch that crab!”

I was honestly surprised at how short they were! I was a big kid, so I definitely wasn’t that short, but I don’t think anyone my age was that short when I was 6. Regardless of how short they were, they were a great first audience. The actual performances start next Thursday, so we’ve still got some time.

I thought I’d put my senior bio on here because it’s funny and why ever not.

Trent has many attractive traits such as his left elbow and superior humility. Indeed you could say he is very… good-looking ;). This is his first production at FCHS but he has dreamed of dancing since he first saw highschool musical. That dream has withered and died like the flower he planted in the 6th grade. But the waters under the sea have given him new life and he is swimming circles with the anticipation of being a part of this wonderful show.

My little brother-who is also in ensemble and I had the distinct pleasure of writing that piece of art. And in case the “… good-looking ;)” doesn’t make sense, I’m visually impaired and my Brothers and I love making blind jokes.

So one of my favorite genres of music is musical theatre. I don’t love the theatre aspect of it, but I love how the songs tell a story. I started going to musical theatre camps when I was twelve and I haven’t stopped since. The first camp I went to was called DPAC (Durango performing arts camp); but after 10 years, the camp stopped because 2 of the 3 camp directors moved away from Durango. For the past 2 years, I went to a connected camp called MT(musical theatre) Rush.

I went to DPAC when I was 12,14,15,and 16. I missed the year when I was 13 due to an incredibly inconvenient brain tumor. I was honestly miserable. I loved my first year and not being able to return because of my chemo treatments was understandably upsetting. I made lots of new friends and re-met a lot of family. By the way, my grandmas sister was one of the directors and my grandma was one of the accompanists for a few years.

When my great aunt moved to Utah, the main camp became MT Rush. It had already existed, but it was smaller than DPAC. In 2017, I went to MT Rush for the first time and I enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, DPAC. DPAC was more focused on workshops to become better actors/singers while MT Rush was more about putting together a lot of musical numbers in a short amount of time.

At both of these camps, I made great friends. It was also a weird kind of family reunion. The location of DPAC was very close to a little town called Red Mesa that was settled by my family a long time ago. So nearly everyone there is related to me.

Fortunately, not everyone in that area is related to me. I met a girl the last year of DPAC. We took an elective together called “5 minute musical”-which is one of the most genius things I’ve ever been a part of. We did “Grease” in 5 minutes. Well we kinda did. We skipped a lot, but it was a blast. We saw each other again the next year at MT Rush. We were already really good friends even though we got to know each other through text. It turns out we were both crushing on each other; so by the end of the week, we were dating. And we’ve been dating ever since. I don’t get to see her very much, though, since we live 8 hours away from eachother.

This is us after we went to her sister’s graduation party

Over the past two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to participate in two state-wide music festivals. The first was with my high-school choir the second was with an All State Choir. My choir director submitted a recording for the first festival and I auditioned personally for the second. I was very happy that my choir made it to CMEA (Colorado music educators association)- I talked about CMEA in my last post- but I was extremely proud that I made it into the Colorado All State Choir. I had been preparing for the Colorado All State audition for months and I actually didn’t get in the previous year.

All State was just last weekend. All the high school students in my school district that had made it into one of the three All State Choirs took a bus down to Denver last Thursday. I have to admit I was very excited to miss school that Thursday and Friday. I had a great time at All-state. I was in the tenor/bass choir and our conductor was Dr. Ethan Sperry (I’m pretty sure thats how you spell it.)We had some really cool songs. Dr. Sperry actually helped arrange one of them.

One of the unique aspects of All State choirs is that you have less than 3 days to rehearse as a full choir. After the auditions, recordings of each part are posted to the Colorado All State choir website. I was aware that I was expected to learn the music on my own by the time the festival started; however, I was not aware that second auditions were also part of the festival. I’m very proud that I only panicked a little. My fears were unfounded, though, and I was not sent home because I didnt know the music well enough.

After several hours of rehearsal, We watched the All State jazz choirs perform. They were fantastic and it would have been a very enjoyable concert if I hadn’t been sitting on the floor unable to move because there were so many other people there. The next day was rehearsal after rehearsal; and while the rehearsals were actually very enjoyable, 10+ hours of rehearsal was predictably exhausting.

We were also encouraged to use the stairs in the 16 floor hotel all of the 600 choir members were staying in because the elevators were always packed. As you might imagine, this gave me quite the work out as my room was on the 8th floor and the rehearsal room was on the 3rd.

By the time of the rehearsal my legs and throat were sore. The performance still went really well. I enjoyed my choir’s performance the most out of all three choirs. I’m not sure if that was because it was the best choir or if it was because I just prefer men’s choirs. Some of my friends from mixed choir decided to design a shirt with a quote from their director.

CMEA is an annual conference for music teachers in Colorado. I have attended CMEA several times; but I’ve only performed twice. I went to see my middle schools performance for my 8th grade year and I’ve watched my little brother perform a couple times too. My sophomore year of high school, I performed at CMEA with my school’s symphony. I played violin along with my older brother. This past year, I performed at CMEA with my school’s top choir.

That was just 2 weeks ago and I had a fantastic time. We went to dinner the night before we performed and got matching shirts. We even got to stay at the 5 star hotel that hosts CMEA every year.

But of course it all couldn’t be easy. When we got to the crazy fancy hotel, my room was already occupied. By someone who said they were me. They were obviously NOT me. I didn’t know about this interesting twist until we got to the hotel. My choir director started calling people off the bus by room. My room was last, but instead of telling us what room we were in; she said she needed to talk to us. My roommates and I immediately assumed we did something wrong. On the bright side, the high school students were not to blame. Unfortunately, the first 30 minutes of staying at the five star hotel were spent sitting in the lobby.

This bizarre change in plans- and rooms- was not all bad. The room that had been claimed by a wannabe-trent wasn’t wheelchair accessible. Which was important since one of my roommates was in a wheelchair.

After finally checking into the room, I went exploring with two of my roommates while the third went to the pool for some reason. It was the end of January, and while it wasn’t snowing, the lake next to the hotel had a thick layer of ice on it. On my adventure with my two sensible roommates, we found a playground. Accompanying the playground was a sign that said, “only for the intended ages.” I reasoned that teenagers were definitely in the intended age range.

Then the entire choir had another rehearsal. It actually went pretty well. Unsurprising as we had been rehearsing the same music for five months. And then we got pizza for dinner. I was extremely tired that night, but fortunately the bed was very nice- as it should b in a 5 star hotel- and I slept quite well. And that was good, because we had a busy day ahead.

That next day we performed. It went extremely well and I didn’t even trip off the stage or anythin. My parents came to see the performance along with my brothers, some of my cousins, grandparents, and other family in the area. The performance at CMEA went better than any of the other concerts we had previously that year. And then we were done. It was quite shocking to realize we weren’t preparing for CMEA anymore.

Choir feels almost awkward now that CMEA is over. It’s still my favorite class and we still make great music; but the entire first semester and the first 4 weeks of the second semester were all in preparation for CMEA. Now that we’re not trying to prepare for the conference, it seems like the choir doesn’t know what to do. Or maybe its that we don’t know how to take a break after the intense work we put into our music for CMEA.

Either way, CMEA was an amazing experience and I’m very glad I got to participate in it. I also want to mention how amazing my choir is. My mom tells me quite frequently that I don’t know how lucky I am to have such a strong choir to participate in. Especially at a high school level. I probably don’t fully understand it, but I kind of get it. I am so glad I got to be a part of A Cappella.

This is going to be the first post in my personal blog. The title- as you might have noticed- is “Blind Music.” Which may seem a bit weird; but, it’s memorable and applies to yours truly. I’m starting this blog mostly because of an assignment in my Basic Composition class; although the idea had been floating around in my mind since I read a blog post from a perspective of an individual with a visual impairment. I also came to realize how interesting I find stories of overcoming disabilities. I figured someone had the same interest and I’d hate to deprive them of my wonderful sense of humor.

Since this is my first post, I’ll introduce myself a little. My name is Trent Slade. I am legally blind thanks to a brain tumor and I love music(thus the title.) I also love to read. Technically, I love to listen; but you get the idea. Specifically, I like reading fantasy and sci-fi books. I have occasionally found books in other genres I enjoy; but I generally prefer fantasy books. I’m always on the lookout for more clean, interesting new books to read; so if you have any suggestions, I’d be very interested in hearing them. I don’t like language arts even though I like reading. I prefer STEM classes (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.) I mentioned before that I love music. I started violin when i was 4 and I started singing in school choirs when i was a sophomore.

The general idea for the content of this blog is my experiences with music. Specifically, my experiences with music with my visual impairment. These first few months of the year are well saturated with big music oriented events (at least for me) and thats why I decided to blog about music. I am currently in the top choir at my high school and this year I made it into the Colorado All-state choir. One of my favorite genres of music is musical theatre (thats the music you find in musicals.) The rest of my music preferences are all over the place, thanks to my dad’s choices in music when I was growing up. Basically, I like all kinds of music; though I rarely like rap. I will do my best to document my musical journey and post to this blog regularly.