Day 10 - Friday 11 May

This morning the boys had to be at the meeting point, Martinskirche, at 08:45am, where we had a rehearsal from 09:00-10:00am.  We had two concerts today, the first one was in Martinskirche at 11:00, and the second one was this afternoon at 17:00pm in Peterskirche. 

We shared the morning concert with the Knabenkantorei Basel (KBB) and the Children's Choir from the University of Lissabon (Portugal) again.  The KBB also performed the Chichester Psalms by Bernstein, but they performed an orchestral reduction version, with only one percussionist.  I found their performance really refreshing – they sing with a beautiful, round tone.  The Children's choir from Portugal has a very similar approach and style of singing than our boys – their music is also very energetic and animated and they also have movements and theatrical aspects to their performance.  The Martinskirche is again a wonderful venue for choirs to perform in, with a beautiful, ornate interior and fantastic acoustics.

Backstage fun 

The concert ended at 12:15pm (everything here is timed to the minute), after which the boys walked to the Uni Mensa (a sub-part of the University of Basel) where they had lunch from 13:00-14:00pm.  From 14:30-16:00pm we had a rehearsal with Singplausch (meaning sing for fun), which is a children’s choir organization (any children who like to sing can join) from Basel, with whom we were also performing in our 17:00pm concert.  This concert’s theme was ‘Africa’, and Singplausch performed a variety of South African indigenous songs with us in the concert.   We also found out yesterday that the whole theme of the festival in Basil this year is ‘Africa’, which is also why we were invited, as the only choir not from Europe, to come and perform here.

The concert was a great success, and the venue was, as usual, packed to the brim with the enthusiastic festival goers.  It was heartwarming to see all the European children embrace our music culture so whole-heartedly.

After the concert, which once again ended not a minute after 18:00pm, the boys went home with their hosts, whom they were going to have dinner with.


Side note:  We have two wonderful festival guides here in Basel, Paulo and Leonie, who have been such a great help to us.  They see to our every need, and their help and organisational skills have been an enormous blessing.  Especially being so lost in translation with our endearing Russian bus driver last week…

The touring staff with Paulo (in the middle) and Leonie, next to Paulo

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