Hello from Nazareth!
Since my last update, we held a wonderful concert in the Kibbutz Bar'am near the Lebanese border. The crowd would have made a Fire Marshal's head explode, with people filling every seat and every possible spot of standing room, including the stairs and halls leading into the auditorium, the stairs leading to the stage, and both sides of backstage. The crowd, as usual, was very impressed by and appreciative of our performance, and once again gave us the honor of the unison clap. The Kibbutz was lovely, and since it was so high up in the hills, it had a type of alpine atmosphere about it. I am not sure what it is about Israel and late concerts, but the last two concerts were at 8:30 and 9:00, respectively, and we are always exhausted afterward.
We then proceeded, exhausted, of course, to our hotel, which was over an hour away on the outskirts of Nazareth. Never before this moment had The Band's "The Weight" seemed to be so appropriate, for we were "feelin' about half past dead." After smearing another round of Aloe Vera leaves on my sunburned body, I crashed hard and had a difficult time waking up on time.
The next day (today) we woke up and drove nearly 3 hours to go back to Abu Ghosh and perform our third and final concert of the festival. For those who don't know, we were originally only planning on two concerts but both sold out very quickly and the festival requested that we do a third. The concert was, as always, very well attended (sold out) and very well appreicated. I also had time to visit the little conglomeration of street vendors and pick up another souvenir. Then we traveled BACK to Nazareth to perform in our evening concert in the city. Because of this extra driving, we were not able to spend any time in Nazareth seeing the city.
Tonight we perform at a church in Nazareth, and are able to do much of our more Christian repertoire because we are in a Christian church. The church, as strange-looking as it is, has an incredible acoustic. We are performing my favorite, the Rachmaninoff. The feature of the afternoon/evening was a pair of pigeons that were living in the church, and swooping low over the choir as we ducked to avoid becoming a target for their fecal matter during rehearsal.
Later tonight we will drive another 2 hours back near Tel Aviv, to our next hotel. The tour will finally start getting more interesting now, as we hit the major cities and areas. Tel Aviv tomorrow and Monday, then to Jerusalem, then to the Dead Sea and Masada. We will even be in the West Bank next week! I should be able to have WiFi in these areas, but again it is not certain at all. We have been lucky so far. I will update as I can.
Hope all is well back in the States!
