May 26- Bled:
Trip through the Alps to Salzburg:
View from the area around the hotel:
May 27 - Salzburg:
Sound of Music Gardens in Salzburg:
Bergheim Church, where we had our concert:
May 28 - Munich:
03 June, 2009
May 26 - June 3: Pictures, Part I
Pictures!!
May 26- Bled:
Trip through the Alps to Salzburg:
View from the area around the hotel:
May 27 - Salzburg:
Sound of Music Gardens in Salzburg:
Bergheim Church, where we had our concert:
May 28 - Munich:
May 26- Bled:
Trip through the Alps to Salzburg:
View from the area around the hotel:
May 27 - Salzburg:
Sound of Music Gardens in Salzburg:
Bergheim Church, where we had our concert:
May 28 - Munich:
The Marktoberdorf Competition and Festival, May 29 thru June 3
I am sorry, once again, for my blogging delinquency. The internet gets gradually more difficult to find as we progress through the tour. I’ll be blogging about the entirety of the competition today, and will follow with pictures!
Here we are in Marktoberdorf! The town is beautiful, but quite small, and there is not much to do in our free time. But most of our hours have been spent in the competition and the associated events, so we have kept busy.
On Friday, we arrived and met our wonderful new tour guide, Claudia, who is helping us while we are here. She has the most delightful sense of humor, and wants to spend time with Alasdair and me during the masterclass. After having lunch in the big tent with the other choirs, we proceeded to a final rehearsal with Volker in the church nearby. Volker is very happy with our work, and has a lot of confidence in us. For those who don’t know, Volker was the chairman of the Marktoberdorf competition’s jury for several years, so he knows what he’s talking about, and his help has been invaluable. On top of that, he is a very funny guy, and he adds a nice note of joviality to our rehearsals.
Also on Friday, we also met our host families for the first time. Jared Lesa and I ended up with a lovely couple, Wolfgang and Heidi, who live very close to the main venue for the competition. They have been wonderful hosts. Wolfgang does not speak any English, but Heidi’s is pretty good. Sometime I wish we had more of a chance to talk to Wolfgang because he seems like such an awesome guy with a lot to say, but he can’t say much in English. The family has two children that are grown up and have moved away, and an adorable Dalmatian-mix named Fiora. Every morning I wake up to Fiora outside my door, rolling around on her back waiting to be loved. Their house is very quirky, with random objects and plants everywhere. They are both gardeners, and their garden in the backyard is incredible. It feels like a little oasis. I’ll take some pictures to show you. We both find it difficult and, frankly, awkward to make conversation with them, and have a hard time thinking of things to discuss. The language barrier doesn’t help, either. Hopefully we will find some more interesting topics of conversation since we seem to have covered all the basics.
That evening we saw a concert by one of the prizewinning choirs from the previous competition, and Dolf and Moni, the two people who seem to keep the competition running, introduced all the choirs. Afterward we headed to the tent for some Bavarian music and dancing. It was so fun, and I could have stayed all night had we not been competing in the morning. Slovenians are party animals, and they spearheaded a conga-line around the tent, and later danced the Macarena to a polka tune. Beer is plentiful, but not available for our consumption because of the U of U policies. People here are profoundly confused by this when we try to explain it to them.
Saturday was a whirlwind of activity and singing. The morning started with another quick rehearsal with Volker on the compulsory work and an extensive warm up of the adult choir. Backstage we were all freaking out and being sentimental, exchanging hugs and excited faces. Once onstage, the energy from the ensemble and the audience was incredible. We performed one of the best concerts of the year, and the audience’s response was overwhelming. When we exited, the energy continued, and we went outside to greet the other members of our choir who watched in the audience. There were a lot of tears and sentimental words exchanged.
Next up was the youth choir portion, and we had a blast. The support from the other members of Singers in the audience meant a lot to us. The centerpiece of our program, Ave Verum Corpus, was the highlight of the concert. When we hit the climax of the piece, it sounded like there were three times as many people singing with us onstage.
Our evening concert was in a gymnasium in Marktoberdorf. We performed a sports-themed concert with the Argentine choir. It was very cool to meet and talk with them, and my extensive study of Spanish was finally put to good use! Our entrance was a quick jog into the stadium, similar to the way a sports team might enter. Moni, decked out in her sports outfit, including a track jacket with “Moni” in block letters on the back, was the referee and emcee of the concert. The audience was waving little Argentine and American flags throughout the concert. Volker was cheering for us, too. Moni also taught the audience how to do the wave, and the choirs eventually joined in. The concert was like dueling choirs; we sang, they sang, we sang, they sang. It was so fun to let loose and have a great time after a long, tough day of competition. After group high-fives for each other, the choirs parted ways and we returned to the tent for some partying. Here I met some German students who are helping run the competition, and had a good conversation. Our host family was patiently waiting for us, so after a few apple spritzers it was off to bed for us.
On Sunday we sang the second round of competition and we did very well, once again. The youth choir hit it out of the park with our portion. Our last piece kept the audience humming along all the way through lunch. The mixed choir was next, and we also did a great job on our repertoire, with only a wee bit of a pitch issue in “Peace Like a River.” We closed the second half with “Oklahoma!” which is an audience favorite, and got a standing ovation when we finished. I think we left a great impression since we were the last choir to perform in the competition, and hopefully that carries through to our scores. We have received countless comments from audience members and the staff of the competition about how deserving we are of first prize, so let’s hope that happens!
After the competition, Jared and I returned to our host family to spend some time with them. At the house was their grown-up daughter, Tatiana, who would accompany us on our outing and later come to see our concert. We decided to go into the countryside, and went up a large hill in the middle of the Allgäu district that had a panorama of the mountains to the south and the pastoral rolling hills to the north, east, and west. It was very beautiful. We also got a chance to see the “Happy Cows” of Bavaria, which are uncommon brown cows that live outside all spring, summer, and fall. They have cowbells on them that ring as they walk, and the combined sound creates a rather pastoral atmosphere. Very cool! Next we stopped at the site of an old Roman bathhouse near Marktoberdorf, and got to see the ruins of it and take plenty of photos. There is so much history here, and it’s very cool to see.
The concert that evening was in Nesselwang, a village to the south of Marktoberdorf. The church was truly beautiful, with ornate carvings and paintings adorning the walls and ceiling. We gave the concert with two choirs who were also competing: a German choir and a Slovenian youth choir, and all of the Slovenes I had met previously were in the choir, so it was cool to see them perform. We were last on the program, and after a rough start, we ended up doing very well, and received a full standing ovation (even from the five jury members on the front row!!). For an encore, we did “Pa Se Slis,” a Slovenian folk song, and the Slovenian choir loved it. I met up with my Slovenian friends afterward and they told me how much they enjoyed that piece and how surprised they were that we knew it and performed it so well.
The tent that evening looked like a great deal of fun (it was Salsa night!), but Jared and I were both far too tired to dance. Again, when you try to explain this to your host family, they become deeply confused.
Monday was a jam-packed day, and we got plenty of exercise both for our bodies and our voices! We started with a church service for Pentecost in a very old church. I can’t remember the name of the town. They put us up by the organ in the loft, which was kind of cool. We were all quite tired but sang well, and the audience was very pleased with us. Afterward we congregated outside for some pretzels and beverages. The town was very cool, and reminded me a little of Praha. I wish I could remember the name.
Next it was off to Füssen to rehearse. We arrived at the Festspielhaus and warmed up on the stage. This place was bizarre because it was a theatre with a giant stage that went back very far, and had a man-made pool in the middle of it. Apparently, the stage was constructed to do a play about King Ludwig II, who died under mysterious circumstances in a lake. We were instructed that for our last number, we were to go behind the lake and when we were finished, they would turn the fountain on. It was bizarre.
After we ate a scant lunch at the Festspielhaus we proceeded to the castle. Here we waited well over an hour for a shuttle bus to the top of the hill, and again waited when we reached the top for the Marktoberdorf people to arrive. It had been arranged for us to sing in the courtyard of the castle, and we did, and it was really cool. Tourists were everywhere with video cameras; surrounding us, behind us, on ledges, on ramparts… it was fun! We next had a tour of the castle, and (of course) it is verboten to take pictures while inside, unless you’re taking a picture out the window. I managed to sneak two or three pictures in the castle, but the lady leading our tour was not in a good mood and jumped down anyone’s throat when they took pictures, so I stopped, for fear of being thrown off a rampart. The tour itself was very short and quite lame, especially considering the 9€ we had to fork over, but it was still cool to see. It certainly made me glad that we had traveled to areas with fewer tourists.
The concert that evening in the Festspielhaus was fun, but we did not get to go sit in the audience and hear the other choirs, which was beyond lame. We sat upstairs for about 2 hours and waited to be ushered onstage for the second half. The audience was pretty lukewarm on most of the performances, which was very bizarre for the Marktoberdorf competition’s normal crowd, but it was still fun to perform. As we sang, they projected images of Utah behind us onto a giant screen. Each song also had a new light setting, so it was quite atmospheric.
Tuesday was the big day when we would learn the results and party it up! The morning started with a big meeting of all of the adult choirs in an auditorium, and all of them talked about the choir, answered questions, etc. Of course, Dr. Allred was very funny, and we had a lot of laughs. This was so much fun, and we got to meet and mingle with other choirs and break the ice a little, which was excellent. Each choir sang a little something for everyone else. Moni called “roll” and asked if each choir was there. Each choir responded with yells and hurrahs, but the Irish choir was less than enthusiastic. Moni proceeded to call them “Tireland” for the remainder of the meeting. After this we had a group rehearsal for a combined piece that we would perform in the final concert that evening. It was very difficult to keep everyone together, especially with the unusual beat pattern of the conductor, and it took several run-throughs. All the choirs had received the piece well in advance to be rehearsed, whereas we had just been given music that morning. It was pretty darn embarrassing, especially considering we were standing next to a German youth choir that had the piece memorized.
The announcement of the winners was fast approaching!! We sat together as a group and sat through several speeches delivered in German and then translated into English (takes twice as long!), and finally, the results were here! The way the scoring works is each choir is divided into three categories based in their performance. The first category is where the lowest scoring choirs go, and that is called “Internationally Good.” It is impossible to win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prize in this category. The next level is “Internationally Very Good,” a category where you can win 2nd or 3rd place, but not first. The final and highest category is “Internationally Excellent.” If you score here you can win any of the three prizes. The U of U Singers… drumroll please… scored internationally excellent and took first prize in the mixed choir competition! Hugs and cries of joy were exchanged for minutes when we found out, and it was so cathartic to have won after all the work we had put in. The youth choir ended up scoring in the Internationally Very Good category and took 3rd prize in the youth choir division. As I knew it would come to pass, the Swedes took first prize in the youth choir category, and they very much deserved it. The other prize that we won would not be revealed until later that evening.
A powwow with the choir followed, and sentimentalities were exchanged around the circle. That evening we would have to perform twice more; once for the prizewinner’s concert, and once for the final concert. The youth choir sang first in the prizewinner’s concert, and we did very well. Singers was last on the program, and we sang “Hail Holy Light” and “Pange Lingua.” The former was a piece that was commissioned by us, so we were the first choir to perform it. The competition has a special prize for interpretation of a new piece, and our performance of “Hail Holy Light” won the jury over, and we also took that prize! In the end we took home 6,250 Euro worth of prizes, about 9,000 USD total. The final concert was very long, but we got to see a lot of fun performances by all of the other choirs. We sang two numbers, “Great American Cowboy” and “Oklahoma,” and when we were finished, we received a resounding standing ovation, and we were called back onto stage by the unison clap and floor stomping of the audience and the other choirs. We finished with “Bile Them Cabbage Down” to close an amazing season of the U of U Singers and an incredible competition.
Many of us went off to the tent to party afterwards, and we danced for a long time. It was the most fun I’ve had on the trip so far. After most of the fun people in our choir had left, we decided to head back home to sleep. Jared and I gave Heidi and Wolfgang our gifts, and we looked at the Utah book I had brought for them together. Jared would be leaving for Salt Lake City in the morning, along with about half of the choir. The rest of us will be staying for the masterclass portion of the Marktoberdorf festival to be the test choir for the conducting workshop. We return on Sunday, and will arrive in Salt Lake City around 7:00 PM. Can’t wait to see everyone!
Here we are in Marktoberdorf! The town is beautiful, but quite small, and there is not much to do in our free time. But most of our hours have been spent in the competition and the associated events, so we have kept busy.
On Friday, we arrived and met our wonderful new tour guide, Claudia, who is helping us while we are here. She has the most delightful sense of humor, and wants to spend time with Alasdair and me during the masterclass. After having lunch in the big tent with the other choirs, we proceeded to a final rehearsal with Volker in the church nearby. Volker is very happy with our work, and has a lot of confidence in us. For those who don’t know, Volker was the chairman of the Marktoberdorf competition’s jury for several years, so he knows what he’s talking about, and his help has been invaluable. On top of that, he is a very funny guy, and he adds a nice note of joviality to our rehearsals.
Also on Friday, we also met our host families for the first time. Jared Lesa and I ended up with a lovely couple, Wolfgang and Heidi, who live very close to the main venue for the competition. They have been wonderful hosts. Wolfgang does not speak any English, but Heidi’s is pretty good. Sometime I wish we had more of a chance to talk to Wolfgang because he seems like such an awesome guy with a lot to say, but he can’t say much in English. The family has two children that are grown up and have moved away, and an adorable Dalmatian-mix named Fiora. Every morning I wake up to Fiora outside my door, rolling around on her back waiting to be loved. Their house is very quirky, with random objects and plants everywhere. They are both gardeners, and their garden in the backyard is incredible. It feels like a little oasis. I’ll take some pictures to show you. We both find it difficult and, frankly, awkward to make conversation with them, and have a hard time thinking of things to discuss. The language barrier doesn’t help, either. Hopefully we will find some more interesting topics of conversation since we seem to have covered all the basics.
That evening we saw a concert by one of the prizewinning choirs from the previous competition, and Dolf and Moni, the two people who seem to keep the competition running, introduced all the choirs. Afterward we headed to the tent for some Bavarian music and dancing. It was so fun, and I could have stayed all night had we not been competing in the morning. Slovenians are party animals, and they spearheaded a conga-line around the tent, and later danced the Macarena to a polka tune. Beer is plentiful, but not available for our consumption because of the U of U policies. People here are profoundly confused by this when we try to explain it to them.
Saturday was a whirlwind of activity and singing. The morning started with another quick rehearsal with Volker on the compulsory work and an extensive warm up of the adult choir. Backstage we were all freaking out and being sentimental, exchanging hugs and excited faces. Once onstage, the energy from the ensemble and the audience was incredible. We performed one of the best concerts of the year, and the audience’s response was overwhelming. When we exited, the energy continued, and we went outside to greet the other members of our choir who watched in the audience. There were a lot of tears and sentimental words exchanged.
Next up was the youth choir portion, and we had a blast. The support from the other members of Singers in the audience meant a lot to us. The centerpiece of our program, Ave Verum Corpus, was the highlight of the concert. When we hit the climax of the piece, it sounded like there were three times as many people singing with us onstage.
Our evening concert was in a gymnasium in Marktoberdorf. We performed a sports-themed concert with the Argentine choir. It was very cool to meet and talk with them, and my extensive study of Spanish was finally put to good use! Our entrance was a quick jog into the stadium, similar to the way a sports team might enter. Moni, decked out in her sports outfit, including a track jacket with “Moni” in block letters on the back, was the referee and emcee of the concert. The audience was waving little Argentine and American flags throughout the concert. Volker was cheering for us, too. Moni also taught the audience how to do the wave, and the choirs eventually joined in. The concert was like dueling choirs; we sang, they sang, we sang, they sang. It was so fun to let loose and have a great time after a long, tough day of competition. After group high-fives for each other, the choirs parted ways and we returned to the tent for some partying. Here I met some German students who are helping run the competition, and had a good conversation. Our host family was patiently waiting for us, so after a few apple spritzers it was off to bed for us.
On Sunday we sang the second round of competition and we did very well, once again. The youth choir hit it out of the park with our portion. Our last piece kept the audience humming along all the way through lunch. The mixed choir was next, and we also did a great job on our repertoire, with only a wee bit of a pitch issue in “Peace Like a River.” We closed the second half with “Oklahoma!” which is an audience favorite, and got a standing ovation when we finished. I think we left a great impression since we were the last choir to perform in the competition, and hopefully that carries through to our scores. We have received countless comments from audience members and the staff of the competition about how deserving we are of first prize, so let’s hope that happens!
After the competition, Jared and I returned to our host family to spend some time with them. At the house was their grown-up daughter, Tatiana, who would accompany us on our outing and later come to see our concert. We decided to go into the countryside, and went up a large hill in the middle of the Allgäu district that had a panorama of the mountains to the south and the pastoral rolling hills to the north, east, and west. It was very beautiful. We also got a chance to see the “Happy Cows” of Bavaria, which are uncommon brown cows that live outside all spring, summer, and fall. They have cowbells on them that ring as they walk, and the combined sound creates a rather pastoral atmosphere. Very cool! Next we stopped at the site of an old Roman bathhouse near Marktoberdorf, and got to see the ruins of it and take plenty of photos. There is so much history here, and it’s very cool to see.
The concert that evening was in Nesselwang, a village to the south of Marktoberdorf. The church was truly beautiful, with ornate carvings and paintings adorning the walls and ceiling. We gave the concert with two choirs who were also competing: a German choir and a Slovenian youth choir, and all of the Slovenes I had met previously were in the choir, so it was cool to see them perform. We were last on the program, and after a rough start, we ended up doing very well, and received a full standing ovation (even from the five jury members on the front row!!). For an encore, we did “Pa Se Slis,” a Slovenian folk song, and the Slovenian choir loved it. I met up with my Slovenian friends afterward and they told me how much they enjoyed that piece and how surprised they were that we knew it and performed it so well.
The tent that evening looked like a great deal of fun (it was Salsa night!), but Jared and I were both far too tired to dance. Again, when you try to explain this to your host family, they become deeply confused.
Monday was a jam-packed day, and we got plenty of exercise both for our bodies and our voices! We started with a church service for Pentecost in a very old church. I can’t remember the name of the town. They put us up by the organ in the loft, which was kind of cool. We were all quite tired but sang well, and the audience was very pleased with us. Afterward we congregated outside for some pretzels and beverages. The town was very cool, and reminded me a little of Praha. I wish I could remember the name.
Next it was off to Füssen to rehearse. We arrived at the Festspielhaus and warmed up on the stage. This place was bizarre because it was a theatre with a giant stage that went back very far, and had a man-made pool in the middle of it. Apparently, the stage was constructed to do a play about King Ludwig II, who died under mysterious circumstances in a lake. We were instructed that for our last number, we were to go behind the lake and when we were finished, they would turn the fountain on. It was bizarre.
After we ate a scant lunch at the Festspielhaus we proceeded to the castle. Here we waited well over an hour for a shuttle bus to the top of the hill, and again waited when we reached the top for the Marktoberdorf people to arrive. It had been arranged for us to sing in the courtyard of the castle, and we did, and it was really cool. Tourists were everywhere with video cameras; surrounding us, behind us, on ledges, on ramparts… it was fun! We next had a tour of the castle, and (of course) it is verboten to take pictures while inside, unless you’re taking a picture out the window. I managed to sneak two or three pictures in the castle, but the lady leading our tour was not in a good mood and jumped down anyone’s throat when they took pictures, so I stopped, for fear of being thrown off a rampart. The tour itself was very short and quite lame, especially considering the 9€ we had to fork over, but it was still cool to see. It certainly made me glad that we had traveled to areas with fewer tourists.
The concert that evening in the Festspielhaus was fun, but we did not get to go sit in the audience and hear the other choirs, which was beyond lame. We sat upstairs for about 2 hours and waited to be ushered onstage for the second half. The audience was pretty lukewarm on most of the performances, which was very bizarre for the Marktoberdorf competition’s normal crowd, but it was still fun to perform. As we sang, they projected images of Utah behind us onto a giant screen. Each song also had a new light setting, so it was quite atmospheric.
Tuesday was the big day when we would learn the results and party it up! The morning started with a big meeting of all of the adult choirs in an auditorium, and all of them talked about the choir, answered questions, etc. Of course, Dr. Allred was very funny, and we had a lot of laughs. This was so much fun, and we got to meet and mingle with other choirs and break the ice a little, which was excellent. Each choir sang a little something for everyone else. Moni called “roll” and asked if each choir was there. Each choir responded with yells and hurrahs, but the Irish choir was less than enthusiastic. Moni proceeded to call them “Tireland” for the remainder of the meeting. After this we had a group rehearsal for a combined piece that we would perform in the final concert that evening. It was very difficult to keep everyone together, especially with the unusual beat pattern of the conductor, and it took several run-throughs. All the choirs had received the piece well in advance to be rehearsed, whereas we had just been given music that morning. It was pretty darn embarrassing, especially considering we were standing next to a German youth choir that had the piece memorized.
The announcement of the winners was fast approaching!! We sat together as a group and sat through several speeches delivered in German and then translated into English (takes twice as long!), and finally, the results were here! The way the scoring works is each choir is divided into three categories based in their performance. The first category is where the lowest scoring choirs go, and that is called “Internationally Good.” It is impossible to win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prize in this category. The next level is “Internationally Very Good,” a category where you can win 2nd or 3rd place, but not first. The final and highest category is “Internationally Excellent.” If you score here you can win any of the three prizes. The U of U Singers… drumroll please… scored internationally excellent and took first prize in the mixed choir competition! Hugs and cries of joy were exchanged for minutes when we found out, and it was so cathartic to have won after all the work we had put in. The youth choir ended up scoring in the Internationally Very Good category and took 3rd prize in the youth choir division. As I knew it would come to pass, the Swedes took first prize in the youth choir category, and they very much deserved it. The other prize that we won would not be revealed until later that evening.
A powwow with the choir followed, and sentimentalities were exchanged around the circle. That evening we would have to perform twice more; once for the prizewinner’s concert, and once for the final concert. The youth choir sang first in the prizewinner’s concert, and we did very well. Singers was last on the program, and we sang “Hail Holy Light” and “Pange Lingua.” The former was a piece that was commissioned by us, so we were the first choir to perform it. The competition has a special prize for interpretation of a new piece, and our performance of “Hail Holy Light” won the jury over, and we also took that prize! In the end we took home 6,250 Euro worth of prizes, about 9,000 USD total. The final concert was very long, but we got to see a lot of fun performances by all of the other choirs. We sang two numbers, “Great American Cowboy” and “Oklahoma,” and when we were finished, we received a resounding standing ovation, and we were called back onto stage by the unison clap and floor stomping of the audience and the other choirs. We finished with “Bile Them Cabbage Down” to close an amazing season of the U of U Singers and an incredible competition.
Many of us went off to the tent to party afterwards, and we danced for a long time. It was the most fun I’ve had on the trip so far. After most of the fun people in our choir had left, we decided to head back home to sleep. Jared and I gave Heidi and Wolfgang our gifts, and we looked at the Utah book I had brought for them together. Jared would be leaving for Salt Lake City in the morning, along with about half of the choir. The rest of us will be staying for the masterclass portion of the Marktoberdorf festival to be the test choir for the conducting workshop. We return on Sunday, and will arrive in Salt Lake City around 7:00 PM. Can’t wait to see everyone!
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