After the Concert

Woowww!
What a concert!
What a programme!
16 songs, from renaissance to our days!
Very nice experience and definitely a kind of power test!
And we did it!
We AND the audience DID it!

I don't know where to start from...

Our maestro wanted us to be ready at the Church of Santa Maria Draperis at 14.30 for one last rehearsal. Then news were updated, the chamber choir at that hour and the mixed choir at 15.15... So I went there at 15.00ish... The Chamber was on stage singing... Hearing them, I remembered the first time I heard them singing in St. Esprit Cathedral, in Istanbul. Oh boy!!! That was love at fist sight! That concert of some years ago is THE reason why I am here now! That's the reason of my hard work, my sweat and tears:))

Then came our time and our maestro invited all to the stage. First, where to stand, how to get positioned on stage, what to do and not to do etc... All the things that now come so natural to me but were so intimidating at the beginning. We started to sing, the church was open to public so we had some visitors, an on spot audience... People came in curiously, sat on the benches in silence, looking astonished with this unexpected extra within the church. Even little kids were unnaturally quite, while we were singing the most unusual songs for the present audience, yet they seemed happy.

After the rehearsal, we had some time off and I went out to have a cup of coffee with some of the girls. Coffee turned into avocado salad and tea...

The concert was to start at 18.00. We started at 18.06, needed to wait for some minutes for the audience to calm down and concentrate. Then we walked on stage with a welcoming applause and I, being very excited as always, forgot to stand towards the audience as our maestro said during the last rehearsal. Thanks GOD, my dear Güneş just next to me and always very careful about every detail, started to whisper into my ear ''to the audience, to the audience''. And I slowly got into the right position. BUT, in the second part of the concert, I did it AGAIN!!!! Am I stupid or what?!

It was very successful except (according to me) one song, the famous Zvezdi of Tabakov. I told you before, it's NOT an easy peasy! We will have more practice in the next weeks and we MUST learn that song perfectly.  And I can assure you, we will master the song before we start our journey to Varna.

It was an important evening too because we had a representative of our transportation sponsor, Fest Travel, as one of our VIP guests. She was soo happy at the end, with tears in her beautiful eyes, repeating '' wonderful, wonderful, I never thought that music could make feel what I felt this evening''. I didn't have the courage to ask what she felt, because sometimes words are not enough to describe certain things. I simply left it unspoken, still knowing deep inside what she meant. And here she is:

And we also had guests from another possible sponsor and after the concert, they gave us a really BIG hug! They were so impressed by what they saw there. They too said: We were NOT expecting to see such thing!

And I had my Portuguese class students there as my personal guests, and they were very nice with the flowers and a special gift! But the real gift to me was their presence there... And here they are:

After the concert, my dear husband took me and our niece to dinner, which was very nice... And this is my beautiful niece:

Overall, when I came back home, I was a tired but a very very happy chorist!