Colby College Chorale: Spain Tour 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Home Safe and Sound
We returned all in one piece to Colby last night around midnight (Well, not entirely in one piece. We lost many MA resident choralers at the airport in Boston).
I will offer the briefest of recaps to give you a few last glimpses of what we have seen and done on our trip, flip-book style (i.e. sentences fragments):
[Disclaimer: this account is somewhat biased towards my experiences as I am, well, me and not the embodiment of the entire chorale.]
Saturday: Bus. Plane. Plane. Bus. Dinner. Crash.
Sunday: Hundreds of red and white arches in the Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral and dinner on the town in Sevilla.
Monday: In the cathedral in Sevilla where the 130 grams that remain of Christopher Columbus rest, sunshine and the bus to Granada.
Tuesday: Sunny wanderings of Granada, small Spanish children chasing giant bubbles and charming Santa Fe.
Wednesday: The intricate and extensive plaster carvings that cover the walls of the Moorish Alhanbra Palace, the surprisingly ornate marble work in the Monasterio de la Cartuja and a standing ovation in Sagrado Corazon.
Thursday: Bus sing-along to Fuengirola. Beach, beach, beach, pub.
Friday: Running through Malaga’s Teatro Romano before the bus leaves without us (don’t worry, we made it). Then, what other than beach and diving into the Mediterranean and singing karaoke until you lose your voice.
Saturday: We said farewell to sunny Spain, having learned to say words like please (por favor), thank you (gracias) and crumbs (migas). Bus. Plane. Plane. Bus. Using the travel time to catch up on journaling. Burger King from the Kennebunk reststop is a far cry from Spanish paella. But we are back in Maine where the snow is nearly melted…
Lauren
Friday, March 25, 2011
And so, at the end
Becca and Margaret´s Excellent Adventure (part 2)
We had dinner on our own last night, but the majority of us all ended up at the same British pub later in the evening. We more or less dominted the space (as you might expect fifty college kids to do), and the DJ played plenty of American pop music for us. It was when we heard "Born in the U.S.A." blasting from the speakers that we knew they liked us. We walked back to the hotel at the end of the night with our ears ringing and our voices gone, exhausted from having danced the night away.
Sorry this post comes a little late - somewhere between dinner and dancing we forgot to fill you in.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
“Christopher Columbus traveled the ocean to found the new world America…now, they come back to us”
“Christopher Columbus traveled the ocean to found the new world America…now, they come back to us”
The above quote was a chant of adulation from one of the fans today during our performance in a Granada church. Like the Dan Brown and David Chase, however, I will have to leave the quote as a cliff-hanger so you, the readers, will have to endure this entire blog to see how this all fits together: sort of like watching Memento, but worse. Bwahahahahahahahahaha.
Today was a pretty much a free day. I thanked Jesus Christ in a sleepy growl that there was no wake-up call to pierce through my dreams and turn them into adrenaline-packed scenes where I hit the decks as my submarine is under nuclear threat from Red October, and was able to sleep-in. The students took advantage of this free time to see the streets and culture of Granada. Many saw Cathedrals as their cultural focus, and others chose to meander around the winding streets and soak up the culture first-hand. I was one of these ladder students, analyzing the striking similarities to Americans as moms dragged their children to school or the doctors, and as friends walked to lunch together.
This free time lasted until 5:15pm, where we had to be dressed in our concert attire and on the bus heading towards a Granada church. We traveled for a small amount of time to the city, where we disembarked and entered the amazing church. The town here was sleepy, but we took much pride in the many posters that decorated the walls of shops, markets, and even the Church. Upon our entry, we were met by a large tan stone gazebo in the center of the church. Flanking the gazebo in the transept (where the church shoots off into two large rooms) were two large areas of prayer with giant religious pictures and candles to lead the dead to the light. The dome took up the majority of the church, encompassing the brightly colored altar and some ornate candles that were in descending order like the singular commercials. Jettisoning from the front of the dome, almost launching at us, were two amazingly decorated pulpits (one used for the apostles and the other for the gospel readings). There was a central desk from which the Priest spoke from. He was intricately adorned in a purple cloak that covered his entire body and his words though in another language, seemed lyrical and his demeanor erudite.
We were stationed in the Nave just before the transept almost parallel to the congregation, however we were facing the priest at an angle, thus intersecting the congregation and not totally parallel. The Nave was not decorated but had an austere atmosphere to it: large stone columns and much open space. It was from here that we sang two songs for the service (one for communion) as a predecessor to our concert, which began some time after the congregation had taken the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Paul led us up to the stairs in front of the altar, and with the dome at our backs, we effortlessly sang the sacred Gregorian chants, captivating our audience more and more with each passing song.
Our concert was divided into two domains: the ‘sacred’ and the ‘American folk song’ sections, the first having most about 6-7 and the last having about 3-4 songs. The crowd’s enthusiasm for our presence and our gift of music exponentially increased with each successive performance, and it was not only our voices that echoed off the stone walls of the lofted and rounded ceiling. Their claps followed our voices as the sound waves found escape tunnels in the ceiling and bolted for the heavens.
The congregation’s love for our songs and appreciation for our concert was not cemented in loud hand collisions, but through the words of some of its members. For example, one man came up to our director Paul and said the above quote which I will repeat due to the large interval of Victorian language I enjoy in spicing up my works. He said, “Christopher Columbus traveled the ocean to found the new world America…now, they come back to us”. See? Told you I would come back to this…unlike the gunshot at the end of the Sopranos. Now as a historian I must point out that the Spanish explorers founded Hispaniola and the South Americas (there was Florida also), but nonetheless the message rang as clear as church bells in a sleepy town: we are returning the favor to our creators in the form of beautiful music. It is always good to hear exoneration from an audience, and this one has been the best form so far.
The night was concluded with more free time, of which I took advantage and accompanied a group to a quaint restaurant where we had profoundly intelligent conversations until curfew. I had a feeling the owner enjoyed our company, and we enjoyed the food and atmosphere of the place. It was a good conclusion to a good night.
Well, readers, thanks for taking the time to glance at this posting. This is an amazing blog, and I feel honored to write on the same electronic table that other members of the Choir get to write on, and be a part of the Colby Chorale historical experience. I hope it has not been too long for you, for I have taken much time to edit my post down so that one does not fall asleep reading it or put it down after the first page like one does when given the daunting task of analyzing War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, or Out of Africa. Not to dismember these exquisite works, but I feel a connection with others when I boast about starting these books and finding myself in the end watching the Daily Show, or just slipping it under my bed so as to put it out of mind. Thank you again for reading, and I hope you are all enjoying the blog postings.
Sincerely,
Matt
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Touring Granada
With the afternoon to ourselves and the weather getting warmer by the hour, many of us decided to explore Granada. On a recommendation from yours truly, several groups set out in search of the Monastery de la Cartuja on the outskirts of town. Although I haven't spoken to anyone who saw it today about his or her visit, I can assure you that if their experiences were anything like the one I had there yesterday, then it is an unexpected highlight of the tour.
I spent my afternoon wandering through the art district and the Moorish neighborhood in the center of the city. Tea shops and artistic graffiti are the norm in this part of Granada. After the very early start we had this morning at the Alhambra, I was ready to partake in a Spanish tradition--the siesta.
Fast forward to our final concert of the tour, which took place tonight at the University of Granada chapel. Our performance began just after evening Mass and we were shocked to have a full house! The space did incredible things for our music, resounding it around the chapel in an angelic echo. The audience is also partly responsible for the success of our concert; there were positive reactions to every piece, and a few "muy bueno's" from the more vocal attendants. A few people were even singing along to our Spanish repertoire! The response merited not one but TWO encore pieces and a standing ovation. I don't think we could have asked for a better final concert, and I'm sure everyone feels that our upcoming days on the beach are very well deserved.
Kendall