It was inspiring to
be able to work
alongside leading
conductors
Das Blog
Anna, Rhea and Matt present the tour's first three-way blog, complete with interesting facts acquired throughout the day.
The choir awoke bright and early in Lucerne to begin our third day in Switzerland. Brightest and earliest was of course Joe "My Butler normally does this for me" Payne, keen to enjoy as much of the morning as possible. We mounted the bus destined for the beautiful city of Zürich, excited for a day of sightseeing. Upon arrival we split up into groups in order to see the most interesting parts of the city; Jackson "Massive Clock" Riley, for example, chose a day of sucking mountain water from each fountain he came across.
Interesting fact: Switzerland has the greatest ratio of elevators to people, most of which are manufactured by the Swiss company Schindler's Lifts.
Zürich is home to much fine cuisine; several of us sampled the local delicacy of chicken nuggets and chips, and made the exciting discovery that we could purchase a family meal (complete with plastic toy) without presenting proof of small children. Many choir members passed the afternoon banging loudly in the four-storey music shop.
Interesting fact: The music shop contained several Disney songbooks with lyrics translated into German. Highlights included "Supercalifragilisticexpialigetisch" and "Winnie der Puuh".
Nearly all members of the choir visited the Fraumunster church which houses some incredible Chagall stained glass windows, and many took advantage of the intellectual stimulation provided by the audioguide. We returned to the Franziskanerkirche, our concert venue, with aching feet but considerably broadened minds.
Interesting fact: The Peterskirche clock face in Zürich is the largest in europe, with a diameter 4cm greater than the clock face of Big Ben.
After a quick rehearsal (consisting mainly of Grahamography^TM ) we sat down to a delicious meal during which our interest was aroused by the following facts:
Interesting fact: The English language contains many contranyms: words which are their own antonym, such as let, literally, egregious and off (e.g. the alarm went off, and then it went off).
Interesting fact: A dzo, which as everyone knows is a type of Tibetan yak, can be spelt 'dzo' or 'zho', but not 'zo'. This meant many of Harry "Fake News" Castle's Bananagrams titles had to be retroactively rescinded.
The climax of the day was the evening's concert (otherwise known as the Toby Hession show). Toby "Trip Hazard" Hession's repertoire included gymnastics on the church steps during the Wylkynson, tasteful ornamentation in the Boyce which left Graham particularly aroused, and a double-act with fellow clown Joe "I can't believe I'm not bobsleighing" Payne involving some missing music. (Toby is coming to a circus near you! Watch this space.)
This concert was Nick "Can Bass 4" Morris' final concert with CCCCC :'(, who accompanied a lusty rendition of "For lo, I raise up" with great aplomb. Unfortunately, Kit "Masc Twink" Holliday got a bit overexcited and his massive crack proved his undoing.
We enjoyed a post-concert reception where we got to meet one of our more enthusiastic patrons who, having attended our concert yesterday in Lucerne, made the trip to Zürich to watch us perform exactly the same program for a second time. Some members of the choir visited a nearby bar before going to bed with their homestays.
Interesting fact: drinks in Switzerland are really expensive.
Anna Tindall (Can Sop 3), Rhea Gupta (Dec Alto 2) and Matthew Nixon (Dec Bass 1)