Day 8: Workshop Day and Penultimate Concert

We had to get up relatively early again today: our workshop rehearsals at Pasadena College began at 9:30. Since many of the singers of the PCC Choir are hard-working students who also work on the side, the morning rehearsal was a bit LJC-heavy - nevertheless, we were still able to refine some details of the German Romantic pieces and do some final work on the (already almost perfect) text. Hats off to the language skills of our partner choir!

Today we took a closer look at two sections from Mortensen's Lux Aeterna with Rodger Guerrero. This time we focused mainly on feeling the music and sharing concepts that we associate with it: prayer and devotion, singing together as an expression of individuality, harmony and love. Later, we had time for a staging rehearsal of our program. Following the American tradition, we also sang some pieces from memory and got used to the quite demanding space - realization: it is really nice to sing with free hands and eyes, to communicate with each other, to work on details together and to adapt to different acoustics.

After a long afternoon break, the time had come: our penultimate concert of the tour at Pasadena City College. Even though almost half of the audience seemed to consist of our fellow singers and those affected by the increasing air conditioning: the remaining concert guests showed enthusiasm and rewarded us with warm applause and standing ovations. The respective "obligatory Whitacre" was very well done by both choirs and allowed us to feel a very special connection between the singers and the audience.

We ended the evening together in a brewery, tasting local beer, enjoying a great meal, and talking and having a great time with the members of our partner choir. Slowly but surely, we are wrapping up the tour, but tomorrow we still have one more concert - finally in a church!

Report: Berit Weingart | #LJCgoesUSA #LJConTour #saechsischerchorverband #simplysaxony