Bach's Birthday

Today I write you on the momentous occasion of J.S. Bach's 327th birthday. And boy oh boy, did we at the Bachackademie celebrate!
We had our second lecture concert last night in the Konsertzaal in the Musickhochschule. We performed the rest of the Gloria (Laudamus Te through Cum Sancto). It went well again, but I caught a few more mistakes than the previous night. Though, my voice was in much better health. I realized that the acoustics make it difficult for me to hear myself. We are very spread out and in front of me are bassoons and behind me are the basses and some tenors (they are not quiet). Last night I learned to trust how it feels to sing and not what I hear; my voice was more happy by the end. I almost fell asleep on stage. This concert had many more arias, solos. So the choir is just sitting there under warm stage lights listening to beautiful music: the perfect recipe for Sarah to fall asleep. I have thought about this problem before. What if I become an oratorio soloist? Especially for something like the Brahms Requiem: the soprano soloist sits on stage the entire concert and doesn't sing until the very end.
Before the applause erupted we even got a "Bravo!" from one gentleman. It is such a shock, you don't expect to hear that for Bach, and you especially don't expect to hear that from a German. They're a bit more reserved in their praise.
After the concert, we all went to the Bachackademie for drinks and food and a little soiree. I was able to briefly introduce myself to Helmuth. He can be intimidating, but wine makes everyone seem more friendly.
The salon, open mic, etc. began with the choir singing two pieces we've been using in warm-ups. And they are beautiful but very serious for our already 'let's get this party started' attitude. The evening had a lot of beautiful music, but we certainly had some more fun acts. A group of us sang "Chili con Carne" and some sang from Bach's Coffee Cantata. The best act of the night was the brass quintet. They did a slow salsa arrangement of the "Agnus Dei" from the B-Minor Mass. One of the most beautiful and sorrowful arias (I sang it for Stations of the Cross two weeks ago), somehow hilariously worked as a salsa with great improvisations on the flugelhorn.
The last act was "Immortal Bach" by Knut Nystedt. It finished exactly at midnight, and we were able to wish Bach a happy birthday in the first minutes of his birthday. Well, the party was just getting started. We were socializing and enjoying the free wine until 3:00 AM. In fact the employee at the Bachackademie tried kicking us out at 2:00, but it took a while to get everyone out, the entire choir and most of the orchestra was still hanging out. Sara and I were singing Disney tunes, but she sang in Italian while I sang the English (though I don't think the Italian version is an accurate translation). It was such a great social setting and many of us were saying we should do it earlier in the program. At least they didn't wait until the end of the program. But seeing how much we get along and enjoy the company, it's going to be a very long night in Naples, our last day... "Una notte a Napoliiiiiiii....."
The entire evening had many great photo opportunities but alas, I left my memory card in the computer. But I am certain some photos will show up on Facebook. Our lecture concert from Monday has already been put on youtube:



Verstehen sie Deutsch? Nein? Then skip to 55:00 to just listen to the concert and skip the lecture in German.