July 21, 1998 - It¹s hard to believe it¹s been over a month since the SBCC Concert Choir returned from their European Concert Tour. Thanks in part to your support and the hard work of the students, the tour was a smashing success!
The choir began their tour in Italy, with a stay in the city of Stresa on Lago Maggiore, where we met up with our Austrian guide Elizabeth Schalleschak, and our tour representative from Kingsway, Gary Unruh. The choir had a fabulous chartered bus which took them from city to city. After a stop in Milan, where two students stayed to attend ³Turandot² at the La Scala Opera House, we moved on to Venice where we performed our first concert at the lovely Santa Agnese chiesa to an appreciative audience.
The great weather in Venice gave the students a chance to tour the Veneto by boat and appreciate the wonderful Italian Renaissance architecture in comfort. Our next stop was Verona, of Romeo and Juliet fame, where the students saw a restored Roman colliseum and prepared to say goodbye to Italy. Our next stops included Innsbruck
and a surprise trip to Salzburg, where we visited a lovely Baroque palace and gardens, Mozart¹s Geburtzhaus, and had our first taste of wienerschnitzel. We travelled through the Italian and German alps and landed in Munich.
The choir sang to a full house in the Bergsallkirche (The Town Hall Church) following their Sunday mass.Church) following their Sunday mass.The president of our Italian Tour Company, Hans Albert Courtial, was in attendance at the concert. He is the only civilian to maintain a private office at the Vatican in Rome, and that evening offered a private tour
of the Sistine Chapel to an SBCC student,Kathleen Brewer, who had made plans for a trip to Rome after the tour for the sole purpose of viewing that chapel. Needless to say, she was overwhelmed by his generous offer.
I also had a chance to have lunch with Dr. Courtial, and discussed plans for a possible future international music festival to be held in Santa Barbara! I believe his organization is extremely professional and well organized, and should this come to fruition it would be a feather in the cap of the choral department at SBCC. We continued our tour of Bavaria in the small village of Füssen, with visits to King Ludwig¹s castles Neuschwanstein and Höhenschwangau.
From there we travelled to the awe inspiring Baroque masterpiece of the Ottobeuren Monastery and Cathedral. Our final concert took place in Luzern, Switzerland, at the Jesuitenkirche, on the banks of the lovely river that runs the length of the city.This was by far our most successful concert; it was very well
attended and we received a standing ovation from the audience, who would have been happy to stay there all night and listen to more American music from our choir. This program of American music was the perfect choice of repertoire for a European tour,where audiences are hungry for this style of music. The next day saw the choir ascending the Jungfrau.This trip took us from a lush green valley to a glacier which rests on the highest peak in the country.
We were lucky to have a break in the weather in Switzerland on this day, and actually saw the glacier and explored the ice caves in relative warmth. While everyone was sad to be heading home, our last stop back in Italy before departure saw the choir touring Lago Maggiore by boat and soaking up one last bit of the Italian sun. Overall, the trip was a stunning success; our guide was terrific, the accomodations were in four- or five-star hotels, and a Kingsway representative was in attendance throughout the entire tour, which was a welcome addition. Again, it was a fabulous experience both for me and the students, and one that we hope to repeat at regular intervals to give future students a chance to learn about other cultures and perform in other countries.
