After a warm welcome and a good night's rest with our homestay families, YPC rose bright and early on Wednesday, ready for the opening day of the Festival. The first stop was the Gymnasium Muttenz, a high school in a suburb of Basel, where YPC met with several other choirs participating in the Festival. Concert Chorus member McKinny describes meeting and rehearsing with these choirs:
"Today was especially interesting because we got to work with some of the other choirs here at the Festival. Both in the morning and after lunch we split up and the Young Men went with the girls from the Mädchenchor Hannover, while the Concert Chorus girls went to rehearse with the Little Singers of Armenia. It was really cool to be able to have a rehearsal with the Armenian girls and see the way they work with each other and with their conductor. I found that our rehearsals went so smoothly due to how amazing these singers were. They were so clear, both in their tone and their musical intentions, that it became very easy for us to see the way their folk songs were supposed to be sung. They are so invested in everything that they sing, it's hard not to match their energy and focus. It was really amazing being able to sing alongside this world renowned choir and to do as they do, and also to have them sing our music and to mix into our rehearsal atmosphere."
--McKinny, 17 years old
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Members of Young Men warm up before an exciting day of musical exchange with other choirs at the Festival
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The choirs shared a few songs for one another at the high school in our very first performance of the Festival. But there was still more performing to be done! That evening, YPC participated in the opening gala performance for the Festival at the Basel Stadt-Casino alongside choirs from Ireland, Israel, England, and many other countries. Greg from Young Men writes:
"Today was a very exciting day! First, the Young Men sang a selection from Wagner's The Flying Dutchman with members of the Mädchenchor Hannover. We also sang Can You Hear? with that choir and I was highly impressed by the near perfect English many, if not all, of the girls spoke and sang in. At the end, all the choirs came together to sing the festival song Music Is Everywhere. According to my homestay, it was adorable. I would say that today was a great first day of the Festival!"
--Greg, 16 years old
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| YPC performs to a sold-out house at the opening gala concert of the Festival |
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| The final measures of Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down, arr. P. Caldwell and S. Ivory |
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