Mexico Day 3 - Earthquake Alarm

After breakfast, we took the buses from the hotel to St. Tomas Moro, a German Catholic community, which took about three quarters of an hour.

There, we were warmly welcomed by the priest, and then we had a short rehearsal on the organ gallery. At 10:30 a.m., the Pentecost mass began, which we accompanied musically. We sang, among other things, the 'Sanctus' and 'Agnus Dei' from Karl Jenkins' 'Mass for Peace', as well as the 100th Psalm 'Jauchzet dem Herrn' by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, with its impressive solo part for eight voices in the middle section. At the end of the service, we came down from the organ gallery into the sanctuary and sang 'Cantate Domino' by Claudio Monteverdi as a final piece for the congregation.

Afterwards, we were invited to the community hall for a snack. There, we were treated to a wide variety of snacks and were able to have conversations with the German-speaking Mexicans from the community. As a small thank you for their kindness, we sang 'Viva la Vida' and 'Kwela Kwela' as a farewell.

From St. Tomas Moro, we continued with the buses towards our next performance. On the way, we made a half-hour stop at a small arts and crafts market. Some of us took the opportunity to buy delicate bracelets or colorful necklaces as souvenirs.
Around 3 p.m., we arrived at the Centro Cultura Helenico. There, we were scheduled to give a concert for the Patronage of German Industry. The concert was also financed by the Goethe Institute, which has generously supported us on many other major trips as well. Only invited guests were expected to attend the concert, which increased our ambition to present a very good performance. The motivation grew even stronger when we entered the 'Capilla Gotica', where we would perform in the evening. The 'Capilla Gotica' was built between the 12th and 14th centuries in Avila, Spain, and consists of two parts from different centuries. One part is the Romanesque cloister from the 12th century, the other part is the Gothic chapel from the 14th century. One of the most important businessmen of his time in the United States, William Randolph Hearst, bought the chapel. In the 1920s, he had the construction dismantled, packed into crates, and transported to New York by ship. There, they were stored in a warehouse at the harbor. When Hearst had to sell the crates in 1929 due to financial problems, they were still unopened. In 1954, the pieces were bought by collector Nicolas Gonzalez Jauregui and brought to Mexico, where architect Luis Ortiz Macedo rebuilt them. The building was truly impressive and the acoustics were excellent for our work.

During our rehearsal, two soloists, the soprano Luxana and the countertenor Rubén, joined us. Singing Giuseppe Verdi's 'Brindisi' from La Traviata, Georges Bizet's 'Habanera' from Carmen, and the 'Barcarolle' and 'Lippen schweigen' from 'The Tales of Hoffmann' by Jaques Offenbach was double the fun!
After a concert of about an hour and a half, an encore was even enthusiastically demanded, which we fulfilled with 'Say something' by Pentatonix.
After the obligatory 'Grubbafodo', we packed our things and made our way back home.

Upon arrival at the hotel, most of us immediately went to the mall to have dinner at one of the many restaurants there. However, the calm of the evening was suddenly interrupted. At around 9:20 p.m., a loud alarm suddenly sounded both in the hotel and in the mall. In the hotel, the staff knocked on the doors and gestured wildly towards the emergency exit, and in the mall, the locals dropped everything and tried to make it clear to the Germans to leave the building immediately. In the gathering place behind the hotel, there were about ten of us choir members, the rest were having dinner at the department store. Next to us stood the other hotel guests, some with wet hair and barefoot. The hoteliers distributed towels to the people so they could keep warm because, unfortunately, an hour earlier, a severe storm had broken out, causing the temperature to drop significantly. We waited for a few uncertain minutes. Initially, we assumed it was a fire alarm, but we quickly realized that it was an earthquake alarm. However, since the Mexican hotel guests remained very calm, we also tried to stay calm. And indeed - after about 10 minutes, an employee came with a megaphone and made an announcement in Spanish. A few of the hotel guests translated for us in English. An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 had been measured in the area, but everything was fine, and we could return to our rooms, although we should be prepared for a possible further alarm during the night.
Fortunately, that did not happen, and we had a peaceful night!