the Grand Prix... (or... the Emotional Roller-coaster)

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Woke up this morning to rain! This is a big deal, as the temperature dropped about 20 degrees down to... well... roughly 20 degrees. While the consistentlz hot and sunny weather has been lovely, to my mind, 42 degrees was a little much and it was certainly time for a change.

We rehearsed this morning for our Romantic class, and rehearsal went really well. We were the last ones to compete in the class, and so performed about noon. We had been told that if we were going to be invited to the Grand Prix, we would hear by 1 p.m. and so after congratulating ourselves on a job well done (it truly seemed to go quite well), we wandered back to the hotel to wait.

Shortly after 1 p.m., I messaged one of the other choir members to see if she had heard anything. She hadn't, but partway through our conversation, she messaged me "I hear screaming". I paused to listen, and heard running in the hallway. We raced to the lobby where everyone had gathered, and heard the news that we had won two of our classes. We were elated! But as the excitment died, some of the more practical amongst us remembered that there were actually prizes for first, second and third in each class, and that it would not be the first time that something the festival organisers had told us didn't quite tranlsate the way we thought it would.

Nevertheless, we had a quick sound check and rehearsal for the Grand Prix this afternoon (after celebrating over pizza), and competed in the Grand Prix shortly after 5 p.m.

This evening was the awards ceremony, where the practical amongst us were unfortunately proven right. We won second in our folk song class, fourth in the contemporary class, and second in our Romantic class. Making up for those disappointments, to a certain extent, was an award for artistic merit (most artistic repertoire).

We went for gelato afterwards (had to put the gelato fund, created by fines levied on those late or who forgot things), and a few of us then went out for drinks to ... celebrate? Drown our sorrows? I'm still not entirely sure which, as we did a good job... I think we'd just had our sights set on winning. Upon returning to the hotel, the front desk guy shoved another award that had been delivered at us - 4th of 7 in the Grand Prix.

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Photos

Sound check
for the grand prix competition

Awards ceremony
All the representatives from all the different choirs...