6/17/2009 (Wednesday): Final night in Prague

This will be short as we have a very early (5AM and it's 11PM now) wakeup tomorrow for our bus trip to Vienna, and I haven't started packing.

Tonight was Gunn Choir's farewell to Prague, with a concert at the Spanish Synagogue and dinner at the Pilsen Restaurant in Old Town.

We began with a coach ride to the north side of the Mánesův bridge (we can't bring the coaches into the city center, so any group event starts with a remote park) and a walk to the synagogue, about 15 minutes. For this trip the choir was in full concert attire, which certainly attracted the attention of passers-by (how often do you see 100 teenagers in black formal wear strolling down the street?)
We arrived a little bit early for the concert, and took this photo:
Of course there will be much better version on Don Anderson's photo page, which should update much faster once we reach Vienna and faster internet bandwidth. As you can see, all the kids are here and doing great. As you can also see, when they are all together they are a LARGE group!

The Spanish Synagogue (which we toured yesterday) has no connection to Sephardic Jews, but rather to the style of construction in the building (strong Moorish influence):

It's very beautiful and a wonderful venue for the program, which included some traditional Jewish songs as well as some American spirituals (emphasis on the Old Testament). The audience was very full, and they loved the music immensely. One of our chaperones sat next to a former Czech resident, a Jew and a holocaust survivor, and he was both surprised and deeply touched to hear American students, mostly non-Jewish, singing these songs in a synagogue, especially done so well. It was a very moving and amazing performance. Below are a couple more pictures I took during rehearsal, so you can see what a beautiful building it is:
After the concert we walked (we've been doing a lot of that!) to the Pilsen Restaurant, this time through the heart of Old Town. Of course the kids were still in concert attire, and still attracting lots of attention.

Dinner at the Pilsen was very good, a typical (so far as I know) Czech meal of beef soup, sausages with gravy and bread, and a fruit pastry dessert. (Vegetarian meals were also available, but not being a vegetarian myself I cannot vouch for their quality). Fortunately this was a very LARGE restaurant, to accommodate our crowd as well as regular customers. Below is just one part (but the biggest part):It turns out that people like to sing in this restaurant -- first came a happy birthday song, then an impromptu aria in Spanish from the back end of the room. Our chamber singers couldn't take that challenge without rising to it, and stood at the end to give a quick and enthusiastic 'Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal':
Naturally the rest of the choir joined in on the triumphant 'Elijah Rock'. It truly brought the house down, with all the guests and staff stunned at the transformation in front of their eyes -- from loud happy teens to an amazing and enthusiastic performing choir. Below is a somewhat poor quality capture, hopefully better video will be on the web soon:



Anyway, that's it for Prague and for me. Tomorrow is our busiest day yet, a full day's coach ride to Vienna, followed by a full rehearsal and dinner, and then a concert. I need to get packed and get to sleep!

See you later!