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On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:50:02 +0100 "Maxwell Pereira" wrote
Camp: Putney, London (England).
Just a short update for freinds and well-wishers.....
I arrived in London yesterday from Paris after spending a delightful fifteen days in continental Europe accompanying the choral group from New Delhi - The Capital City Minstrels, with whom I have the privilege to sing. We were on our maiden European Concert Tour on invitation from Hungary, Germany and France - and performed nine Concerts in all, three of which were in Paris. During the tour we had opportunity to sing jointly with two local choirs of repute - the Remsheid Vokal Ensemble (RVE) in Germany, and with the Suresnes Chorale Group in Paris. We also performed in two historic castles - in Budapest at The National Gallery of Art in Buda Castle, and in Germany inside the Schloss (castle) Burg in Solingen... besides singing in two historic churches too - St Michael's in Budapest and Eglize St Elizabeth de Hongre on Rue Temple within Paris.
On the concert tour, we were felicitated at receptions hosted for us by the Indian Ambassadors in Budapest and Paris; as also by the Mayor(ess) of Remscheid (in Germany) and the Mayor of Suresnes (just outside La Defense in Paris).
As one of our choir members wrote to Zohra Shaw (the Founder of CCM currently in Boston) describing our successes at the concerts, ".......The audience in the Pest (as in the eastern half of Budapest) St Michael's church in Hungary... had been pretty ecstatic, clapping after each item, where at the end we had to give them four encore renditions before finally winding up..... But the one in Remsheid Market Church was unbelievable: in a standing ovation they clapped and clapped and wouldn't stop after each item! The two Germans in our own choir were zapped because they said German audiences are very conservative and don't clap after every item, especially in churches, but this audience surprised us all. Perhaps it was because they were hearing music they didn't know, perhaps we did sound good in the fine acoustics of the places in which we sang. Perhaps it was our colourful stoles over black or cream kurta/churidars and even more colourful saris, perhaps it was being good to guests, perhaps it was the sitar, tabla and Bharat Natyam we threw in, but whatever, we were all bowled over by the response. Personally don't think we were that great, we were fine and perhaps even good, but the audience left our conductor, Gabriella, and our host (RVE) conducter, Werner Rizzi (himself a composer and conductor of great repute in Germany apart from being Professor of Music at the University), wearing the broadest smiles you've ever seen in classical choral singing! Werner later told Gabriella that in all his 24 years of conducting choirs only on two occasions before had he come across the audience standing up and clapping in appreciation.
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