We're done!

We sang very well today and were very pleased with all the hard work we did. The room was much better than had hoped, the piano was terrific. We were among three of the last choirs to song in the Tolosa Festival. We were so disappointed that we couldn't hear the other choirs.

During the warm-ups, we sang the Basque song, "Phartitze Trixte Huntan..." while the arranger, Inaki Tolaretxipi, stood by with his choir as they began to sing with us. That was fun.

After our two sets, we went to dinner and ate with the other choirs. We were somewhat separated, so we really didn't get to meet anyone. We did recognize some of the members of the Basque choir that was in San Luis Obispo a couple of years ago.

Some more pictures will go up as I steal them from other photographers on this trip. Stay tuned!

We're going in..

Wish us good luck. Later...

Competition Day in Tolosa tomorrow

What a wonderful end to the concert tour before the competition. After spending part of the day in San Sebastian, we went to Aoiz to perform at the concert hall "Casa de Cultura.". The room was dry so we were finally able to hear everything clearly. Sone things were really good and there are just a few things that need to be cleaned up.

We went to a restaurant after the concert and, of course, we found an opportunity to sing for our supper... We sang Shanendoah for our Courier, Reinhart, since he was not able to hear this concert. In walked some other people, who turned out to be a men's quartet from Denmark. They sang a beautiful Basque fold song for us. It brought me to tears, it was so well sung. Then our director noticed that there was a children's choir from the Philippines in the next room. We asked if they'd like us to sing for them. They said "yes" and we sang "Let Me Fly."

They sang a version of a couple spirituals, including "This Train is Bound for Glory"

Then the quartet came into the room and sang another beautiful and comic German song.

I am pumped for tomorrow!

Iglesia Parroquia de San Pedro Advincula

What a beautiful ride to Polanca, which is about a 2.5 mile ride from Zarautz.

The concert went very well and again we were blessed with a standing room only audience. Kelli Lueder, a soprano in The Choral Project, met up with a friend from the Basque choir who came to the choir festival we went to in San Luis Obispo four years ago. Here name escapes me now, but I'll update this later. Anyway, they had a great time on the bus and she was able to give us some more insight into the text of the two Basque songs we are performing in the Tolosa festival.

This photo was taken earlier today after rehearsed at a local historical house, which is now a school. We went on a walking tour of Zarautz and found that this town is a surfers hang out. They also play soccer on the beach. We were all impressed by the sense of community the locals have. And we experienced their willingness to stop and talk to us, even if we can only say about for words to them.

Photo Op

We are ready.

Zarautz!

Bless you! We had our third concert of the tour tonight and the audience was even more appreciative than the last, if that's possible. We wish we had audience back home like this.

We sang really well also. Of course we still have a lot of polishing to do. But, overall, we are on track.

Tomorrow we have a rehearsal at 9am, a walking tour of Zarautz and then we get on the bus to go to our concert tomorrow night.

Stay tuned!

Free WiFi at last!

I'm finally able to connect when ever I want, but we're so busy, I'm never here to post anything.

Another successful concert.

We sang at the Catedral de Burgos tonight to another full house with standing room only. There is nothing more satisfying than to have a full and truly appreciative audience. After breakfast this morning, we took a walking tour of Burgos and saw some amazing castles, monestaries and churches. We took a bus to the Cartuja Santa Marie de Miraflores Burgos. Of course, we took the oportunity to sing Ubi Caritas in the choir of the church.

Then we took a walking tour all over Burgos. I found an exhibit of portraits of the Artists of Burgos, which were beautiful black and white photos.

It's late now, so I'll update more tomorrow. We are heading into competition mode. Starting tomorrow we will have 3 concerts and then the competition begins.

Until next time...

Fine dining in Burgos!

Today we traveled to Burgos and arrived just in time for lunch. Anne, Jan, Lorri and I (Ruth) went into town, down cobblestone/brick streets. On the way we saw some bricklayers creating a new wall.

We explored the streets and found a place in the Plaza Mayor where we sat upstairs. The ceilings are low and the seating was tight, but comfortable. We each ordered something and tried to use our best 1st grade Spanish on the staff. Everything here is wonderful. We are having such a good time.

At 5:00p (or 17:00 hr), the Altos had a sectional to go over the music for the competition and in particular, to go over the music we had sung the night before. We spent 2 hours drilling sections and welcoming our lastest Alto arrivals, Tina and Yumi. They just arrived today.

After the sectional, some of us when upstairs and enjoyed a bottle of delicious red wine with some Spanish chocolate (best stuff, I'm bringing some home).

At about 9:00 pm, we went to dinner. We had the most amazing dinner so far. We had Duck with julienne vegetables, Ox Burger on greens (spinach), three kinds of hummus, Salted Cod, and two very colorful salads, one was cold and the other was hot, with anchovy dressing.

We will sing so much better tomorrow after being inspired by such a beautifully prepared meal. As we were leaving, we saw this poster of us. We're famous!

Goodbye Salamanca

We performed our first concert of the tour in the beautiful Palacio Figueroa Casino de Salamanca here in Salamanca. Clay Walton-Hadlock, our traveling accupuncturist, gave both our soloists, Melanie Nelson and Kristin Baxter, treatments for different maladies and as a result they sang beautifully.

We had a full audience, with many people standing on the floor and in the balcony, which surrounded us. There were even a few people from San Jose, California in the audience who greeted us enthusiastically. There were many well-wishers for our success at the competition.

I (Ruth Winter) got to play a beautiful Yamaha grand. The audience seemed to enjoy the whole concert, including the live surround-sound as we encircled them to sing Daniel Hughes´arrangement of Irish Blessing, a benediction just for our Salamanca audience.

After the concert, we had a delicious dinner at El Bardo, where we sang Ubi Caritas for the managers and the owner of the restaurant. We sure had a lot of really good red wine.

At 10 am tomorrow, we will travel to Burgos, the home of El Cid, the great warrior who brought education to is troup of stategies of war and pushed the back the Moors (look it up). We are having a lot of fun.

We made it - Hello Spain!

We got into Madrid around 2:00 in the afternoon. Four of us followed the signs, we thought, to the baggage claim, but ended up outside and we weren't sure how to get back in. We finally found everyone else and got our bags. Tom Johnson was the last to get all of his luggage and realized that the most important piece of luggage (the microphone stands) were no where to be found. After a few minutes, Tom realized that they were lost! Perdito! But, we had to get moving.

When we got on the bus we were reunited we the rest of the choir. We were so happy. And we were greeted with a cheers and clapping. What a reception.

The bus ride to Salamanca was 2 hours and most of us slept!

WE are finally here!

Rehearsal this morning was nice. The choir is so happy to start making music. Pictures will so follow when I figure out how to upload them to the lobby computer. So far, my iPad is not connecting successfully!

Walking tour, then a concert tonight. The adventures continue...

Take 3: after breakfast

And we're now at the airport for the 3rd time planning to fly to Spain with a hop to Frankfurt on the AirBus A380. I can't wait to see how big this plane is!

We are in good spirits after an impromptu rehearsal of a familiar favorite tune with a new twist. Daniel will be so proud of the work we have done. We have not wasted our time at all and have grown more as a choir in the last two days as we try to get to Spain.

Other fun things from the last day in SF:
- there was a tattoo convention at night
- there was a beauty pageant for little girls this morning
- Comicon / X Men / Jerry Springer look alike show
- an Arrogant Bastard taste off
- an early morning run
- a visit to the gym
- some liquor induced inappropriateness. (what happens in BurlinSpain stays in BurlinSpain)

We are so ready meet up with our choir family.

There is a silver lining...

So, uhgggg! We were not booked on that flight tonight! What! Are you serious? About 15 members of the choir are already headed to Spain, while the rest of us still wait to figure out what went wrong in terms of booking our flight! 3 of us (not me) got on to this 9:05p flight and will be heading over tonight. The rest of us are getting our guaranteed boarding passes for tomorrow afternoon. This is not a trip for the high strung! How we get from Madrid to our gig in Salamanca is another story. But those of us still here in San Francisco will not be there for our first concert, which was schedule to be in Madrid. Me siento decepcionado.

On the happy side, we will be traveling in style on the new Airbus A380. Tom Johnson is a licensed pilot and thinks this is so cool. He drooled on my iPad when I showed him this photo.

We will get there eventually. In the meantime, I'm really getting to know my fellow singers. We are sharing the same pain.

To the airport, Take 2

The check-in counter will be open for our flight in about 40 minutes and we're lined up like groupies to a mid-night premiere. We really want to make sure we're on this flight and successfully make it to Munich, then on to Madrid. During lunch, we talked about the disappointment of not being in Spain, past choir tours and how this is really an opportunity to just be with people with whom you enjoy hanging around. And even though there was that moment of annoyance when we just got to our hotel rooms to rest at 3:00 am then got that call to tell us that we were meeting in the lounge at 4:45 am. At that moment, some of us felt that it was going to be tough to get back up get going. Then the call came that we would take the next 9:05 pm flight to Munich. At least most of us got a good night's sleep.

The 9:00 breakfast and the walk to downtown Burlingame filled some of our time. Then we checked out and stored our bags and walked back to the Broadway Grill where we had a really nice lunch with some fun conversations. Tom Johnson, our recording engineer, told us he had spoken with the captain of the flight last night. He says that they have a panel that they monitor that has to do with engine control and 3 of the 4 engines came up to 95% of take-off power but the fourth one was under 50%. Both pilot and co-pilot had eyes big as saucers because this is highly unusual. Tom says that he could feel the plane abort take-off and Rick Mixon, sitting next to him, heard Tom say, "That's not good."

Here's hoping we will be in Spain tomorrow! Most of my friends outside the choir world are asking, "Are you there yet?"

Adventures in Madrid, scratch that... BurlinSpain

So we are still going to Spain. we are just delayed a bit. The choir was split into three groups. Some of us are heading out around 7:30a the second group around 2:15p and the rest of us, hopefully, will be on a very crowded flight at 9:00p. We are spending our day getting to know the locals in sunny downtown Burlingame. Starbucks anyone?

We are ready to go!

Everyone got to SFO at the right time. Even though we have 2 more hour until our flight, we raring to go. There is no singing yet. Tom Johnson, the recording genius on tour with us, brought a super compact state-of-the-art recording equipment. I'll get a picture later.

In the meantime, we decided to pose in front of security and a defibrillator station. We are so happy.

Testing my iPad!

posted by Ruth Butterfield-Winter

So here I am on Wednesday night. In two days we will be on the plane heading to Spain. I thought I would just take my iPad to Spain, but first I wanted to test it to make sure this blogging would work. So far so good.

Let's see if I can add a photo!

OK we're good to go! Now back to packing and organizing!

Looking forward to travel day

posted by Ruth Butterfield-Winter

Today is Tuesday. Yesterday was our last rehearsal before our trip to Spain to compete in the Tolosa Choral Festival in the Basque region of Spain. I have never been out of the USA (except for Canada) so this is very exciting to me. Several of the Choral Project members are world travelers and have toured with this choir or other choirs, so they look at me and say, "It's no big deal." Well, it is a big deal to me. How much money should I bring? What clothes should I pack? I don't want to look like a tourist. Should I try to see the sights, or focus on the music I need to sing? Why can't I do both? Am I going to bond with my colleagues more than I have in the past 5 years I've sung with this group? Will I find out things I wish I hadn't known? Will I do something out of character that will be something people laugh at when they see me in the future? Wow! I can't wait to find out.

All the competition music is memorized and needs just a few concentrated fine tuning sessions. All the tour music is ready to sing. My health is at it's peek. I am so ready.