Thursday, December 11, 2008

Multi-Talented Girl

Madison is a girl of many talents. She is amazing academically, is great at soccer, loves to climb, and I have always known that she was also talented musically. She had a great opportunity Monday night and I have been wanting to share it but couldn't find the right words since I wasn't actually there. My mom emailed me to tell me about the evening, so I thought I would just share her words with you....

Last night was the Fruita Monument High School Holiday Extravaganza- back in the day we called it the Christmas program. So where else would we be? We picked up Madison for our annual evening of enjoyment and headed out. The Choir, Band and Orchestra all perform (separately) which means a lot of parents and family come-so they have the program at the Avalon Theater downtown, where we went to see Brian Regan. To help raise money for the school programs they do something fun. They have for $5 you can play the trivia game, which is trivia on the 3 directors, Ryan being one of them. So you would think it was a done deal now but wait last year we did not win, oh the pressure. The major award for being the winner is you get to direct the band for one song-Sleigh Ride! Ryan has to have the band trained to work together and be able to play without real direction! So Madison picks our seat in the Balcony and we begin to fill out our trivia game. Dan makes it so fun for Madison and I. Then after turning it in we realize we forgot our program for the event- so Dan and Madison head off to get one. They end up chatting with a student about how sales were going on the trivia game and the student shares how Mr. Crabtree had told them his niece had been saving up all summer to buy a chance to direct the band, probably to encourage the band to be able to play the song no matter who was directing -or is it conducting. How funny the guy did not know he was talking to his niece! Madison is now so nervous and excited about possibly winning and actually going up there on the stage in front all those people. Of course we get to enjoy all the choirs first. Next is the band and Ryan comes out and is adding another level to the podium to make it taller. Yikes now she is sure she won or do they usually do that. Then Ryan reviews the answers with the crowd and we had only missed one- and it was about Ryan! He waits to announce the winner until they have played their first song. Now Madison is squirming, but it had looked this good last year too. So
Dan and I are reviewing how to walk out there with her head high and no one would be able to tell how scared she was. The first song is over and Ryan comes back to the mic. to announce the winner- Madison is frozen- and he says will Madison Caster come to the stage. At this time not many people are expecting an almost 10 yr old. Dan helps her to the back of the stage and Madison walks out with her head high and the crowd all sighed "oh" as how precious is that. Ryan took a few minutes to give her directing/conducting lessons and left her at the podium. She lifted her directors stick thing (what is that called?) and the band started playing. She almost seem startled at how powerful she was! She said the whole band was staring at her with
smiles in their eyes. When the song was over she stood there with her back to the crowd until Ryan came back and told her to take a bow. It was so sweet, she turns and brings one arm across her waist and the other one back and bows to the crowd. The kids and the whole crowd went wild cheering for her. As she walked off the kids were yelling "you rock Madison" and other cool stuff. She came back to her seat and was so shell shocked scared and had too much fun both. As Ryan was getting ready to direct the next song there was some confusion and the band started yelling Madison come back. She looks at Dan and said should I go? She was ready to go again. We did talk to Ryan later and he said she really had won the game, the closest other score only got 4 out of the 7 or 8 questions, so it wasn't fixed. I sure hope someone was able to get a picture of Ryan giving her lessons. What a memory!!!!
Love, Polly


Here are some pics of the event...




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yay Madison! I bet that was a blast.