Monday, June 27, 2005

Greetings from Canterbury, Day 2!

This day should be very reminiscent of the kids’ retreat weekends – started early in the morning with breakfast and then off in full dress for the official festival photograph. Quite a feat for the photographer to get in all 5 choirs, no risers and a fantastic backdrop of the Canterbury Cathedral. We had a gorgeous day here, sun shining, warm temps, but nice and cool in the Chapter House, a side part of the Cathedral, with 50 foot high ceiling and beautiful stain glass windows.

All of the choirs met for a 2 hour rehearsal in the morning – understand this is over 200 kids, ages probably 10-18. All talking at the same time, hmmmmmmmm. Apparently didn’t faze the two guest conductors, Randall Stroup and Ronald Corp because as I write this at 8:38 p.m., they are again in a 2 hour intense rehearsal. Following the morning session, Chris, Jeff and I had an assembly line of PB&J sandwiches, apples, clementines, crisps (potato chips), cookies and a new supply of water. Was actually fun sitting in this lovely arched walkway which reminded us of the abbey in “Sound of Music”.

After lunch we watched two of the participating choirs in their recitals in the Quoir of the Cathedral. Tomorrow is our turn to perform acapella in this more intimate area of the building. Then we were off on our Canterbury city tour and Cathedral self tour before the workshop that just our choir had with Randall Stroup. Kids really enjoyed his tips and pointers on some of their favorite songs and I’m sure they’ll never sing “Go Where I Send Thee” or “Dancing” without thinking of his critiques. Commended them and Margaret for the high degree of difficulty of their repertoire.

After the workshop, we boarded the motorcoach and headed back to the Kent University campus for dinner, then a quick rehearsal with Margaret before back now to the Chapter House for this last big joint rehearsal. We are really excited for tomorrow’s big performance after another day of eventful rehearsals.

Til next time,

SUE