Day 11 - Saturday 12 May

This morning, the boys had to be at the Musik-Akademie Basel at 08:45am, for a rehearsal.  Chef gave a type of presentation/workshop about African choral music here from 10-00-11:00am, with the boys demonstrating all the concepts he taught to the audience.  The Musik-Akademie Basel is an institution for music education and comprises a music school, college of music and a center for early music research and performance. It is a beautiful school, nestled up against a hill in Basel, with a mix of old and modern architecture. Interestingly, this is also the school where Nathan Julius, a Drakie old boy and Hilton College alumnus, is studying.  We met up with Nathan quite a few times during the course of the festival (he attended some concerts of ours), and we are very proud of him and his achievements as a singer and an old boy.

Chef and old boy Nathan Julius in the Musik-Akademie Basel

After the presentation, the boys walked to the Uni Mensa (this is basically the dining hall complex of the University of Basel – mensa is the Latin word for table), where they had lunch at 12:00pm.  The boys were desperate for some free time (they do have a very busy schedule here at the festival), so we decided to send them off to the shopping street until about 14:00pm.  At 14:20pm, we performed on an outside stage in a big square called Barfüsserplatz for 15 minutes, and again at 16:20, for 15 minutes.  Then it was time for the Parade à lénvers (literally: a parade for everyone), a big street parade for all the festival goers, where they can walk through the streets surrounding the Münsterplatz (that is the square with the biggest church (Münster) in Basel, and see all the participating choirs singing on the sidewalks of the streets.  At 17:30pm, the choirs all had to start walking back to the Münsterplatz, with our boys leading the parade with the singing of Shosholoza. 

Fun fact:  It seems that Shosholoza has become a kind of unofficial anthem of the festival – almost all the choirs know the song, and it is often heard being sung in the streets, in the trams, in the dining hall, actually almost anywhere where there are choirs together. It is really wonderful to see how something so uniquely South African, has united so many choirs sin song in Europe.

Hereafter, the boys went to dinner at 18:45 in the Uni Mensa again.  Afterward, we took a 26min tram ride to Arlesheim, where the Knabenkantorei Basel (KKB) had a concert. Seeing that our boys are being hosted by families of the KKB - most host families also have boys that are in the KKB - they met their hosts there in Arlesheim, and had a free evening with them after the concert.

Tomorrow is the final day of the festival.  We have our last concert tomorrow, participating in the closing concert of the festival.  Thereafter the boys are packing their concert clothes in their suitcases, and then we are getting on the bus to the airport in Zurich, where we are flying to Dubai tomorrow evening at 22:15pm.