Pictured above is the the COS Choir on their Tour of Italy
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Pictured above is the the COS Choir on their Tour of Italy |
COS CHOIR SUMMER TOUR TO ITALY
Guest Columnist: Elaine Schaefer. Ms. Schaefer is the Choral Director at College of the Siskiyous. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, Instrumental Performance, from CSU, Hayward; Bachelor of Education, University of Regina; and, Master of Music, Conducting, University of Regina.
A very special choir, from College of the Siskiyous, recently returned from a remarkably successful musical tour of Italy. According to the choir members, "This was the trip of a lifetime."
Rome was the first stop on the tour. Roman philosopher and tour guide, Gino, kept the choir busy for three full days as he led us through ancient Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Catacombs, the Parthenon, and into many of the city’s major cathedrals. The crowning event in Rome was a private, after-hours, guided tour of the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. When the choir entered the Chapel we were in awe. So much so, we spent a half-hour lying on the floor and draping over the Chapel’s benches trying to drink in the incredible beauty of the frescoes on the ceiling and walls.
The Bishop in charge of the Sistine Chapel had previously given us permission to sing in the Chapel. After our quiet meditation on the sheer magnificence of the building, we formed a circle in the middle of the Chapel and sang the Gregorian Chant, Ubi Caritas. By the time we finished the song there was hardly a dry eye in the group.
The choir performed its first formal concert at St. Ignatius Church. The Church itself was nearly as incredibly beautiful as the Sistine Chapel. The choir sang under a frescoed dome in front of an altar decorated with gold leafs and 12-foot candlesticks with lighted candles and surrounded by 30-foot paintings.
Traveling on to Perugia, a walled city sitting on top of a large hill, the choir performed in the Cathedral of Perugia, Don Giovanni. Upon arriving, I found the organ was not in the condition I had hoped it would be. The pipes only seemed to work when they felt like it! Our choir’s organist, Sharon Stromsness, heroically kept things going through the Faure Requiem despite the fact that she was loosing sounds faster than she could find them. However, the concert was a great success!
After the concert, two ladies came to me and said we had a choir from Brataslava, Slovakia, in the audience. She wanted to let our choir know the Slovakian choir was enamoured with two of the pieces we had performed and asked if we would share copies of the music with them. I gave them my e-mail address and promised to send them the music. Two days after our return to campus, I indeed got the e-mail and I have since sent the music. I hope this relationship will be the beginning of a new international friendship.
Leaving Perugia we traveled on to Florence where we were given a tour of the elegant Cathedral of Florence, as well as the Uffizi Art Gallery, where we were able to view David in-the-flesh (actually in marble).
The choir’s final and most memorable concert was in a little 1000 year-old church about a half-hour outside Florence. After our experience with the organ at the Cathedral of Perugia, Sharon Stromsness and I decided to go the church and checkout the organ. It was a good thing we did! The organ turned out to be a small pump organ. This means the organist must alternately push the two pedals that operate the billows in the organ. We knew there was absolutely no way we could perform the Requiem using that organ. Not to be daunted, we arrived an hour early at the church and rehearsed the pieces that generally require organ accompaniment and discovered that the songs were even more beautiful when sung without the organ. We decided to do the entire concert a’cappella. We were even able to save one movement of the Faure Requiem. Mary Ann Gould consented to sing the Pie Jesu without accompaniment and it was just beautiful.
We were a little worried, though, about where we were going to get an audience. The little church was sitting on a hill out in the countryside. There was no town, just a lone stone church. About 15 minutes before the concert we were all by ourselves, sitting outside, enjoying the starry evening. Then we began to see headlights coming down the country lanes in every direction. Within 15 minutes, over 200 people had arrived for the concert, and the small church was absolutely filled. We performed our finest concert in this very intimate setting.
Following the concert tour the choir traveled on to Lake Magore which is located on the Swiss border and spent two days relaxing before starting the long journey home. Everyone truly enjoyed the entire trip and will savor the experience of traveling to Italy, the warm receptions, the splendor, and singing in the magnificent churches.
The COS choir is already in rehearsal for its upcoming concert season. We have concerts planned for December 4 and 5th and May 6th, 7th, and 20th. Rehearsals are held every Wednesday evening at the Weed Campus, in the Kenneth W. Ford Theatre. Everyone is welcome to sing in the choir. If you are interested, give me call at the Weed Campus, 938-5315 or send me an e-mail: schaefer@siskiyous.edu .