Hello! My name is Ethan Dimaano, and I am a first-year student in Glee Club. This spring tour, the Notre Dame Glee Club traveled to the Southeast. This was my first tour as a member of the Glee Club and it was an experience that I will never forget! Here, I will take you through my experience of the tour!
For our first stop, the Glee Club flew down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where we got to experience some beautiful weather, participate in a St. Patrick’s parade with the Notre Dame Club of Fort Lauderdale, and sing a mini concert at Beach Promenade Park where the festivities continued.
After our visit to Fort Lauderdale, we continued to travel up north, our next stop being Orlando. While we were there, we got to visit Disney Springs, enjoying some wonderful food and stores. Next was St. Simons Island, Georgia, where we were faced with a gorgeous view of the ocean and an astounding lighthouse. Some of us were able to climb the lighthouse, which had a view that was both a little terrifying and breath-taking.
During our tour, we visited other amazing locations such as Savannah, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Raleigh, North Carolina. In Raleigh, we were fortunate enough to sing a joint concert with the talented Saint Mary’s Choir, Belles Voix. We sang two beautiful songs together, one of them being Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria (Angelus Domini). This piece was already a Glee Club favorite, and having the women’s choir join us made for an experience that many of us will not forget. After Raleigh, we visited Asheville and had our last stop at Nashville, Tennessee. Even though this was my first tour, I could tell that this was one of the best tours the Glee Club has had in a while, with one of the largest turnouts for the members and some of the best locations.
Throughout the tour, the time I spent with the Glee Club and the traditions that we had brought me a lot closer to the guys. While I already knew the guys well from the amount of time we spent together, the tour was an experience that brought all of us together. Many Club members would agree that our tours are one of the best ways to get to know the other members.
Beyond bonding with the Glee Club, something that I was not expecting was how much we were able to connect with our audiences. Many of the audience members have connections with Notre Dame or the Glee Club, and they were very excited to have us sing for them. Since the Glee Club does homestays with some of the audience members, I got to meet and make connections I never thought I would have made with other people and alumni. This was a great learning experience for me, one that reminded me just how powerful the family of the Glee Club and the family of Notre Dame was.
In the future, I hope to attend every tour after this, the next one being our Summer international tour in Europe! Many of us are so excited for this tour and for the next ones to come! Thank you so much for reading, and Go Irish!
Ethan Dimaano is a first-year from Riverside, Illinois studying Biochemistry.