Day 5 - Sunday 6 May

Our day started with a breakfast at 07:00am in the dining room of the Jugendhotel Markushof.  A typical German/Austrian breakfast usually consists of a variety of bread rolls and bread, different types of sliced cheese, a selection of cold meats, as well as yogurt, cereals, and fruit.

We left the hotel at 07:45am, as we had to be at the church in Wagrain where we sang as part of the service this morning at 08:30am.  It is a Catholic church, and for most boys, it was a novelty to experience the structure and order of a Catholic mass.  We sang between each different part of the mass, and the audience was very moved by the choir's diversity and sound.

Fun fact:  Joseph Mohr, the poet who wrote the words for the very popular Christmas carol Silent Night, was a priest in the exact church where we sang this morning.  His grave is in the graveyard just outside the church.  The boys honored his memory by singing Silent Night around his grave after the service.

After the church service the boys quickly went back to the hotel to change into their jeans and golf shirts, and at 10:45am we departed for Salzburg, which is about a 40-minute drive from Wagrain.  We went to visit the Mozart Geburtshaus (the house where Mozart was born).  Since we have two pieces by Mozart on our concert program, the boys were very excited to see where it all started for the Austrian wunderkind.  Salzburg (literally: "Salt Fortress") is the birthplace of 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  In the mid-20th century, the city was the setting for the musical and play The Sound of Music.

We had lunch at Sternbrau, which is in the same street as the Mozart Geburtshaus.  It is a historic restaurant in the famous Getreidegasse (Getreide street), that serves traditional Austrian cuisine with a modern twist.  The boys enjoyed very succulent chicken schnitzels, accompanied by potatoes with herbs.  When their plates were cleared, I saw that all the plates were empty, which is quite telling about what the boys thought about the meal.  They also had dessert of a type of vanilla sponge cake filled with apricots and dusted with icing sugar, served with a dollop of cream.  Again, that also went off very well with the boys.

After lunch, we left to go to the church where we performed tonight, the Gneiskirche in an outer suburb of Salzburg.  We had a soundcheck and rehearsal from 15:00-16:00pm, and the concert started at 17:00pm.  We shared the concert with the Primary School choir of St. Francis, as well as a vocal ensemble called Hohe C (High C).  They are a very well-known male acapella group hailing from Salzburg, who won the category for Vocal Ensembles at the 2014 World Choir Games in Riga (Latvia).  The Gneiskirche was a wonderful venue to sing in, with magnificent acoustics.  We sang to a full-house (on a Sunday afternoon..), and the audience was very engaging and appreciative.  The concert was a tremendous success, and the boys really did the school and South Africa proud.

The concert finished at 20:15pm and we arrived back at our hotel at 21:30pm, when the boys quickly had a late supper and were then sent off to bed.  They have another jampacked day tomorrow.

Side note:  Yesterday when we arrived at the hotel, the boys saw that there was still a little bit of snow left near the top of a small hill just outside the hotel.  Not seeing (or touching) snow often, many boys immediately set off to experience some fun in (very little) snow...