Tour Blog - Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra

Today’s tour schedule brought us to Gran Canaria’s capital, Las Palmas. It was a smooth day, a super fast ferry shipped us and the orchestra safely, nobody sea-sick (well, at least not that I know of).

Nice to see the band and choir growing closer together, on top today’s symphony was absolutely breathtaking, not talking about Gert Voss and his Manfred speaking, pure art! Its truly not a bad life in these days, 20 degrees and sunshine on the islands, I even walked along the beach, barefoot listening to the waves. The travel god has been on our side so far, touch wood!

Las Palmas’ concert hall is stunning, too. The audience can see the ocean through a huge bull’s eye, a delight to sit in the rehearsal watching the waves growing

Let’s see what comes next. Spanair’s bankrupt disaster from last week is sorted, alternative travel arrangements with combinations of plane and trains should take us all to Barcelona smoothly. Again, fingers crossed! You never know…listening to the news from Italy and London about their snow chaos, anything can happen. We are prepared and looking forward to Spain’s mainland adventures in Barcelona and Madrid over the next few days.

Over and out – the concert’s just finishing, Paella time!

After the travel disruption and bitter winter of Ferrara it was with considerable relief that yesterday’s travel day to Tenerife was relatively straight forward, so long as you ignore the lost tenor and the misplaced suitcase!

Tenerife itself seems somewhat sleepy in the light February sunshine. But the concert hall is a marvel. Rising out of the sea like a Scorpion on the crest of a wave it couldn’t be in greater contrast to the Classical opera house of our first concert.

Most intriguingly, however, are the rock beds that surround the hall. Each rock is decorated with the face and name of a famous musical figure, both past and present, from Bach to Britney. Of particular note is poor Berlioz who is sandwiched in between Edith Piaf and Celine Dion! I wonder if John Eliot would consider this as a future programme selection?!?!

EVERY TIME WE GO AWAY IN THE MONTHS OF DEC-MARCH IT SNOWS. WITHOUT FAIL.

Fair cop – it’s my own fault; I got fully caught up with all the weather-related hysteria on local radio (Snow, BAD, Airports, BAD, Roads, BAD, Trains BAD) so I did the conscientious thing and left home for Gatwick in plenty of time for the 15.50 flight to Venice (which is KIND of near Ferrara, our destination, although not as close Bologna Airport, which is interesting – teehee…only joking Sophie!).  Of course the trains ended up being completely fine so I, along with a few others in our small group, arrived ridiculously early.  I mean insanely early.  On top of this, the flight was, of course, delayed. If I’m honest, I was secretly hoping it would be anyway because the opening 6 Nations game between Wales and Ireland was kicking off at 15.00; if it left on time, we could kiss goodbye to the second half.  Rugby heaven.  Managed to sweet-talk the barman at the only Gatwick-Departure-Lounge-establishment-with-TV-screens into changing the channel over from News 24 which was rolling on and on about the snow, and secured the rugby channel for the game.  The choir’s Welsh contingent was adequately represented (Thomas, Davies, Bannan….missing Evans of course, due to the recent arrival of Evans Jr…ahhh!) so we whiled away the build-up and the first 40 minutes happily, half-time score notwithstanding (13-5 to Ireland….humph.).  Just as the whistle blew for the end of the first half we heard the flight would be delayed not by the hour announced initially, but by three hours instead. Oh goody.  Final score Wales 23, Ireland 21, Monteverdi Choir 0.  Good start to the 6 Nations campaign though. We reached Ferrara by 1am (not the comfortable 8pm expected). Schumann solo/orchestral rehearsals only a matter of hours later on Monday morning….. Luckily the rest of the choir arrived without delays yesterday (Tue) and all seems to be going well with the new Monteverdi Choir / Mahler Chamber Orchestra collaboration.  There are a few familiar faces from our beloved ORR who also happen to be moonlighting on this project too – a helpful bridge in getting to know the MCO players and, most importantly, in getting information out of them on where the best restaurants are……

First show later tonight at Teatro Comunale Ferrara…. and then to the Canary Islands on Thursday to defrost.

Our two choir rehearsals in London last Thursday promised the start of an exciting new programme through the musical world of Schumann, taking us to Ferrara, the Canary Islands Tenerife and Las Palmas and finally Barcelona and Madrid over the next two weeks.

That was Thursday…Tonight I am watching the snow falling down on Victoria Park thinking about tomorrows flight from Gatwick to Venice for the 12 soloists. BA’s arrival and departure website tells me that the LHR flight to Venice is cancelled, our one from Gatwick is currently fine. But the main part of the choir lot is taking off from Heathrow on Monday morning…fingers crossed!! Good job the orchestra and the maestro have already arrived safely in Ferrara and are getting ready for us. I so much love touring in winter wonder land Updates to follow…