The Choral Project is getting on a bus today down to San Luis Obispo for the inaugural California International Choral Festival, which is the first judged choral competition in the USA, modeled after judged competitions popular in Europe, such as Spittal, Austria, and Llanglollen, Wales, where we competed on our 2004 tour of the UK.
Thankfully we don't compete until Saturday morning, and the "choir stroll" on Saturday afternoon should be fun, but we do start the entire competition by going FIRST in the compulsory round! At least that means we get to hear the other choirs...in Llangollen we went last, so had to be backstage during the other choirs and couldn't hear them, and we only had one round to perform. This competition we have three rounds, compulsory + one of our choice, folk round, then Choir's Choice, so at least we know we're peforming all the way through Sunday. Even if we don't win, it will be awesome for all the choirs, from Uganda, Finland, the Philippines, and from Spain as well as a couple American choirs, to sing the compulsory pieces together Sunday night, along with Be Still My Heart to the tune of Finlandia. My favorite part of our last "competition" was the impromptu sing-off late into the night with a Swedish choir, trading songs as long as we could. I hope we get to do some of that and meet others who obviously must love to sing as much as we do! :)
Now the last bit of packing & cleaning awaits, then I'm off to the bus...wish us luck!
