This Might be a long one??? 6/18

So today was probably the best day ever since we've been here in Rome, maybe the best day of my life? It was hard to be yesterday after all our adventures, but it totally blew it out of the water. This morning was the first rehearsal with the orchestra. It sounded amazing!!!

(The Sancta Maria Magiore ----->)

I have never sang with a full orchestra before, but it is soooo much fun! Thankfully today was in a air conditioned room, which they do not have a lot of around here. After rehearsal things kind of went down hill for a while. You know how you get when you are around the same people you are not normally around a lot for to long? I love these people to death, but I think everyone was getting tired of everyone, well that all ended after today.
Today was our two mini concerts. After getting changed for the concert (black pants, tux shoes, black socks, white oxford shirt with tie), I was already sweating by the time I went down to the basement of the hotel to warm up. Than after warm up we had to walk about ten minutes to the Sancta Maria Magiore. If I was sweating then, multiply it by ten by the time I got to the church. It was kind of gross.
So the first mini concert went......ok. Not the best. We only had twenty minutes and we drastically undertimed a lot of the songs. The poor alumni didn't even get to really sing here. Wait on the Lord was good, and so was Sicut Cervus. But than came Lux Aurumque. It was really kind of rough, so we thought. And than Ave Maria. We were a little out of it after Lux Aurumque because we were kind of discouraged. By the time Ave Maria was over we sand Wait on the Lord, and than our time was up. We didn't get to perform like the last two songs we were planning on performing. So we went to the coach (as Adrian would call it. He's our spazzy tour guide if I haven't talked about him yet. He is a wealth of knowledge, but he kind of stresses everyone out. He's a good guy though), and we were bussed over to the Pantheon.

(<--- The roof of the Pantheon)

The Panthen is GINORMOUS!!!!!!! And gourgeous. We had 25 minutes before we were to start so we got some gilatto and some water. After discussing same changes in staging, we went into the Pantheon. (A little side note. There was this poor bird that was in the pantheon flying in circles around the dome trying to find a way out. It kept on trying to land on the little indents in the ceiling, but there is not way you could, they are sunken in the wall so there's no ledge to sit on. He almost made it out of the whole at the top of the ceiling a couple of times but never successfully made it. By the end of the concert.....................................he had died. It was kind of sad actually. Thankfully it wasn't a dramatic death. We didn't see him again till when we were done. He had sat on this ledge of the wall about 30 or so feet up and just died. Actually it look like there might have been a little bit of a crash landing, but at least he didn't fall to the ground on people. Moment of silence for the bird..............................................................moving on!) So the Kenyan choir was singing when we got into the Pantheon. The choir finished and it was our turn. Thankfully we could take our time with the music because we were the last group to go, so we could do pretty much what we wanted.
We first sang The Word was God with alumni. It went well
Than we sang Sicut Cervus, that went really well.
Than, dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Lux Aurumque. By the end of the piece I was grinning like an idiot. IT WAS SOOOOOOO AMAZING!!!!!!! Not only did we sing really skillfully, but the sound just reverberates off the walls like there is not tomorrow. It was gorgeous and Mrs. Bauchspies was really pleased and shocked.
Than the big song. Ave Maria. Again AMAZING!!!!!! The best we have ever sang it. That last chord just hung in the air for no joke like five or so seconds. And that overtone was just there ringing. It was gorgeous.
The one frustrating thing about this venue is that a ton of people are going in and out of the Pantheon taking pictures and talking. But by the time we finished Ave Maria, everyone was pretty much quiet and had walked towards the front where the pues are and were standing and listening to us. A lot of people said that people were shushing other people, which was really cool to hear.
The rest of the concert went great. This Little Light of Mine was really really good too. AGH!!!! Everything was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!
By the end of the concert we were all smiling ear to ear, and Mrs. Bauchspies even cried a little after Apple Tree. It was the best concert by far we have done all year.

(Adrien, the festival's chaplin and I after our Pantheon concert ---->)
At the end of the concert all these people were taking pictures of us. People we didn't even know. It was soo cool. The coolest thing though was that Paul Leddington-Wright, the conductor of most of the big concert came and listened to us at Sancta Maria Magiore. He really liked us there despite the flaws. And right before we started to sing at the Pantheon, he walked in and he had come to listen to us again. He loved it. He said we were top notch. And he even invited us to come to England to do an exchange with his choir and tour around England. OH MY WORD!!!! YESS!!!!!! And all these other people were coming up and telling us how much they enjoyed it. It was really a great time! But sadly the last time the current Madrigals sang together as a choir. :-( But it was a good note to end on (don't mind the corny music puns).

(<---Some of the guys taking a picture fromt he floor looking up at the top of the dome of the Pantheon)
I really need to start cutting stuff because this is getting really long. So after the concert, Mr. Torggler treated us to dinner at this family owned reastraunt. The nice thing was that is was outside of "tourist" Rome. So we kind of got a feel for the real Roman lifestyle. It was lot of fun. While we were eating, this guitar quartet played the whole dinner. They walked around from table to table playing for the people. John Noh knew like all the songs they were playing, and all of them were in Italian. So John was singing his lungs out with these guys and he had the time of his life. Even the guitar playing singer people really liked him. Dinner was really good and filling and than we came on back to the hotel and we had devotion and than went to bed.

Well it is past one o'clock and I need to turn of the computer and go to bed. See you guys Saturday! Much love!

P.S. Please pray for Jake. He went back to the hotel after we sang at the Pantheon and missed dinner because he is not feeling well. When we got back from dinner, he said he was felling better but still not great. So keep him in your prayers so that he can sing tomorrow at the final concert!

(John singing his heart out with the singing guitar quartet guys)