Building "Barrage: Animado!"--very little blood, buckets of sweat, and a few tears, too.

After a nice six week break in July and August, we returned to tour for the much-dreaded, much-anticipated, ever-popular "show build."

That's right. Good-bye to "Barrage: High Strung" (for now), and hello to "Barrage: Animado!"

With 12 new songs, a new stage set-up, and a new violinist (!), Animado has thus far been a trip, to say the least.

Let's start from the very beginning (...a very good place to start).

The beginning of Animado actually started with the departure of Sarah Bennett, a violinist who had spent two years with the group. She's on scholarship at the New England Conservatory in Boston and had to return to finish her bachelor's; her final show was in Idaho at the end of the summer tour. Because Sarah was the closest to me in age (23), we had been really close in the band. I was really sad to see her go, for multiple reasons. Suffice it to say: Sarah was a phenomenally talented violinist and singer, and just a riot to be around.

Sarah's departure, however, provided me with some firsts: I am no longer the "new one," and I'm also no longer the youngest. It's definitely a weird transition, to go from being the resident newbie, to being one of the "others" (I don't know what to call them/us...regulars? veterans? oldies?). It's odd to see someone else going through everything you went through just a year prior: the constant feeling that you're "not good enough," the frustration of not being able to "get it" as fast as you'd like, and all of the effort that goes into tackling the workload of memorizing a giant folder of music and hours of moves.

Said folder of giantness: orange tabs are new Animado pieces, blue are High Strung, green is celtic music for summer festivals, and yellow is miscellaneous.
Christmas music (marked with red tabs) is in a separate folder.

This tour started with meeting Kiana Weber, the newest addition to Barrage, in Florida, where we built the new show. Kiana, only 19 years-old, just finished her second year at the University of Michigan where she's working towards a Bachelor's in Violin Performance. Not only is she a great violinist and singer, but also a remarkable fiddler--it's been really musically stimulating having her as a part of the band. [And in retrospect of this post, the enthusiasm and dedication with which she tackled joining this band was remarkable!]

We spent two weeks with Brian Hansen, Barrage's main choreographer, at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Clearwater, Florida. Every day for 2.5 weeks, we were at the theatre from 9-5 (and sometimes longer) rehearsing our music director and running around the stage like crazies trying to learn all of the new choreography. (And when we weren't at the theatre, we were usually at the hotel stressing about all that we had to remember for the next day...that, or we were at the beach.) It was, without a doubt, incredibly taxing, both mentally and physically. Some of the new music is incredibly technically-demanding, and trying to keep up the energy in rehearsal all day was definitely a task. (However, it definitely helped that there was a Starbucks just down the block!)


Being stationary for 2.5 weeks provided unique opportunities and a nice diversion from life "as normal" in this group, i.e., in a new hotel every few nights. Living in hotel suites with furnished kitchens meant we didn't have to eat out for every meal (as we do 99% of the time). This also meant that we spent quite a bit of time "hanging out" in our living rooms. You might think that we spend a lot of time "hanging out" normally; with our normal touring schedule, however, we usually don't have too much time to just relax in comfortable couches and chairs. That being said, one of my favorite events from the show build was the "Family Dinner Night" that Jason and I arranged in our room (in conjunction with the rest of the band).

Two pots of pasta.

So we like place cards and small candles (courtesy of Annette)...no big deal.

One more final note of importance from our show build in Florida: I got to do my very first TV interview as a member of Barrage! Kristina and I went down to the CBS studios in Tampa to appear on Studio 10 with Holley and Jerome (similar to Regis & Kelly but local).

My favorite part of this picture is that both Holley AND Jerome
managed to have their eyes closed...