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Published: July 21st 2010
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The temperature
Yes. You're reading that correctly. Up bright and early this morning, although not as early as the small group performing in the Renaissance Class. They were first on the agenda for the entire day. We wandered over to the auditorium to see them perform at 9:00, and it was an absolute pleasure! They looked like they were having so much fun, and were sounding just about perfect!
Stayed to listen to a few of the other competitors afterwards, and got to hear groups from Poland, Russia, Latvia, Italy, South Korea, amongst other countries. It was interesting to hear them all, but competitions like this can be pretty subjective, and we're not at all sure what the judges are looking for. Fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The best part of the a.m. was watching Heather stalk the pianist from a Genovese choir, in the hope that he would agree to play for us in the Romantic class - our Rheinberger "Wie Lieblich Sind Deine Wohnungen" really needed some accompaniment, and, fortunately, he agreed. Not having much else to do, I volunteered to pick the guy up and escort him back to our hotel after the Genovese competed in the Baroque class that afternoon.
The auditorium in Gorizia
where we competed in all our classes. In the meantime, K&A and I tried to find some baggage in order to ship stuff back to Canada after the competition with some of the choristers that were not staying on. We failed, massively, as for some reason pretty much everything in Gorizia is closed on Saturdays... But did manage to have a good lunch before I mosied back to the auditorium to listen to the three competitors in the Baroque class (not us, obviously). It was interesting, but not particularly exciting. The Genovese managed to flub up something (I think the entire choir forgot some lyrics at some point, but they sure sounded good!). Escorted the pianist back to the hotel where we had a short rehearsal, then got prepped for our evening participation in the 20th century-and-on class, which we nailed. It was fabulous, and I think we were all quite proud of our performance. Our director was smiling at the end, anyway... Really smiling.
In the evening was an 'open air' party, where the wine flowed freely and choirs intermingled. I have a feeling there will be internet footage of us all singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in a circle around the Latvian director floating around out there. That or "Siyahamba" with the Polish Medical University choirs. Yes. Choirs. There were two. One from the Gdansk Medical University and one from the Warsaw Medical Universitz. Ended up chatting towards the end with one of the guys from Gdansk and determined that the choirs let in anyone good enough, doctor-to-be or not, and that there were engineers, economists, etc. in the choir. So if you are the guy from the Gdansk Medical University choir, and were competing at the Seghizzi thing in Gorizia, Italy, and remember talking to a girl in a black dress from Canada at the open air party, give me a shout! I was sorry our 'chaperone' made me leave! Probably could have handled another hour there without nasty side effects for competition the next day.
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