Saturday afternoon at the CMAA members meeting, Director of Programs Arlene Oost-Zinner announced that the next Sacred Music Colloquium will be held from June 30 to July 6 in the year of our Lord 2014 (yes, including July 4 for Americans and July 1 for Canadians) at St John the Evangelist Church in the place where the midwest and the south and the east all meet, the place where men and women drive in circles to the cheers of millions, in the city of Indianapolis.
This is great news for me. I'm fairly certain that I'll be there next year since I can get to Indianapolis in two and a half hours. That'll really cut the travel costs for me.
But the place where east meets west and north meets south is really Kansas City - the easternmost western city and the westernmost eastern city, where battles of the civil war were sought and the south held forth, but the city itself was part of the north ...
I described it as above because Joel Garreau does the same in his book "The Nine Nations of North America": his regions "Dixie", the "Breadbasket", and the "Rustbelt" meet there.
Easy trip from Detroit, plus my inlaws are down in Columbus. I was DM at St. John and was married there. What a stunning church. Looking forward to it!
Beautiful church in the hotel and convention center district and right next to the nice, revitalized downtown area. Organists: Indy has a number of superb instruments. An organ crawl would be quite worthwhile.
Is this going to be the pattern, then, staying with one venue for a couple of years then going somewhere else? If we could just find a suitable place in California....
I did suggest Alcatraz, Chris. Great acoustics and cells for on-site monastic ambiance. CMAA leadership has undoubtedly realized that Eastern to Midwestern demographics guarantee at least break even econ. The year NPM did Long Beach was a disaster for them on all fronts. We in CA. must decide TSA or nothing. Unless, of course, CMAA charters a jet from CA (my daughter's in that business, wink wink.)
I think a lot of folks would like to attend a colloquium in Cali, Charles, but could church musicians afford the lodging? The hotel in SLC was $72/day (minimum). Is it possible to get a deal in CA to match or beat that figure?
The hotels are great. But Andrew, is there a park where CMAA Occupy Indy folks can set up their pup tents? I'd like to cut down on lodging as there're great malls downtown to shop at.
The front page says "Rooms from $129". I couldn't get the booking thing to load properly, but if that price is per night, I'd have to differ on the reasonable rate part.
Can we get a group rate? I hate to say it, but for me, $129 per night is expensive. Add to this that I have to fly there. I may have to plan for 2015 Colloquium instead.
My friends... have none of you heard of Priceline? In cities like Indianapolis you can bid on hotels and get rooms for under $50 per night. If you don't mind not staying in "the official" hotel, you can get rooms very cheap. If you split a $50 room with someone else it would be around $25-30 per person (after taxes).
The key is to do the "name your own price" thing, select the area closest to the church where the Colloquium events will be held and then bid low. Likely you'll have to adjust your bid and sometimes you have to wait 48 hours before bidding again (if you don't want to drop your star rating or expand your area). However for people who are extremely cheap (like me), it can lead to GREAT savings.
I don't know if the "official hotel" is public knowledge yet, or if CMAA has made a final decision on what it even is yet, but I know it's not the Canterbury anyway.
Someday... all y'all will realize that San Diego is the truly ideal place for a Colloqium. The Immaculata, USD, the Mission Basilica, the beach, the weather.... But Indy is fine with me. ;)
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