Mars Hill 2025

Caroline auditioned for and was accepted into the Mars Hill

Choral Festival again this year. Yippee! To our delight, our friend,

Rose Monson, also was accepted into the choir. Both girls were the

only student from their respective schools, so we carpooled out to the

mountains together. Usually Mars Hill is a two day festival on Friday

and Saturday in Feb. In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene hit the

mountains of NC devastatingly. Things were cleaned up enough

to hold the choral festival in Feb, but there were still crews out there

cleaning and rebuilding and the administrators didn't want a whole

slew of high school students occupying the hotel rooms in the area.

So, the festival was shortened to a one day event.

We'll take what we can get.

Caroline, Rose, Rebecca, and me getting ready for

rehearsals to start.

300 of the best choral students from all over NC

Caroline was ALL THE WAY at the top this year,

in the very far right corner.

The concert is SOOOO good that I invited family to 

come out and watch it. Brandon and Grandma Sweat

took me up on my invitation. Yay!

Andrew was the tour guide while I was the "school

representative" at the festival.

They stopped by the Guilford Courthouse Battleground.

And found a fun waterfall on the way to Mars Hill.

Ready for the concert!

The quality of the students was phenomenal once again,

even though they only had a few hours together to rehearse.

Here is the whole concert for your viewing pleasure

if you have 24 minutes and REALLY love choral music. :)

Caroline's fave was Lacrimosa at 7:40

And my fave was Arirang at 10:49

The last number, Personet Hodie at 18:30 is also fantastic.

Our girl!

With her fans!

Stopped for dinner at Blue Mountain Pizza afterward.

Yummy! And fun live music in the background.

Had time to do one puzzle with Grandma before

she flew home to take care of Grandpa for his 

back surgery.

I'm so grateful for high-quality uplifting music and the way it touches my soul!