Dr. Eric Conway writes:
Day 4 in Slovakia:
Today,
the Morgan choir woke up earlier to depart from Vienna, Austria to
travel to our new destination Bratislava, Slovakia. We have had almost
perfect weather our first few days in Europe, but this morning was cold
and wet. The journey to Bratislava is famous because it parallels the
famous Danube River. The Danube river connects Vienna,
with Bratislava and Budapest, Hungary! Slovakia was once part of the
former Czechoslovakia. The small country of Slovakia is surrounded by
five different countries - Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Hungary, and
Austria.
On
our way to our next destination, we made a stop to tour a national park
commemorating the ancient Roman City of Carnumtum - a former Roman
Empire military post. On this site was a reconstruction of buildings
from the period - 6 AD to almost the year 400 AD. We were impressed
with the relatively advanced architecture of the times. Much of today's
architecture and civil engineering is based on Roman advancement over
two thousand years ago. Unfortunately due to the rain, we did not get as
much from the visit as we could have, but it still was worth the stop to
learn about how the Roman Empire extended as far north as the Danube
river in this region and all the way to Great Britain to the west of us.
After
the tour of ancient city, we traveled to Bratislava, the capital city
of Slovakia for our performance. We were pleased that the sun began to
break through. Bratislava is a charming city that most were not aware
even existed. We knew we were in a different country due to all the
signs being written in a different language - Slovak. Their Slovak
language is closer to Polish than German. Surprisingly many of the
locals did not know any German, despite being only one hour from Vienna
unless they studied the language in school. We had lunch on our own and
then took a walking guided tour of the city. Bratislava is one of the
smallest capital cities in all of Europe which meant for the visitor
that one could virtually walk the entire city without any trouble. Many
of the inhabitants seemed to be enjoying just walking around the city
center taking in local life. We only a had a little over two hours to
travel to our hotel and turnaround for our performance which was at
least twenty minutes from the city.
Tonight,
we performed at the Jesuit Church. Our presentation was not full
concert, but a participation in a mass with a short concert immediately
afterwards. We sang the introit, offertory, communion selection, and
finale during the service. The 6 PM service was well attended where the
entire service was spoken in the local Slovak language. Many who had
heard the other two concerts said this was the first concert where the
choir seemed to truly enjoy their sound. I personally believed as good
as the acoustics of the other two venues, we were able to hear each
other much better in this church than previous venues and thus were
encouraged to blend our voices more and consequently sing more in
tune!
After
the mass and brief concert afterwards, we went out to dinner at a local
restaurant. A local Gospel choir who called themselves Apollo
attended our presentation and joined us at dinner. They knew a few of
our selections, so after our dinner, we all sang one spiritual together
which was quite special for both choirs. See attached more photos and
links to videos of our tour of the city and performance below.
EC
Link to Slovakian street musician:
Link to another Slovakian street musician:
Link to Jesuit service - The Lord Be Praised
Link to Oh Happy Day encore:
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