Today was the big day we have been working towards all week: our concert! Our organizers arranged a free concert open to the community around the castle. In the morning we did final run-throughs of our program, plus some last-minute polishing and adjustments. We had the chance to see our venue, which was to be either just outside the local church, or possibly inside if the audience turned out to be small. We really had no idea how many people might show up, although our local contacts seemed to think there might be too many to fit within the pews.

Following a last lunch at our regular restaurant at the base of the castle, we had the afternoon off to rest and prepare for the evening concert. Everyone knows that rest means going for a swim in a mountain stream, right? A group of us decided to visit the swimming hole that some others from our choir had been to earlier in the week. They had had the place to themselves, and brought back glowing reports of the water and the scenic spot.

The water and scenery were refreshing as advertised. The only difference was that this being a Sunday, and hot, seemingly the entirety of the surrounding population had the same idea. The rocky pools were swarming with people sunning themselves, chatting, cooking barbecue, and generally having a good time. They didn’t seem to mind having us join them, and graciously made room for us to take a dip. Aaaahh!

In the evening before the concert, we had a group dinner scheduled at another local restaurant. The venue turned out to be a sort of beer garden, serving a local specialty called miasse: a sort of stiff crepe made from thin cornmeal flatbread stuffed with different sorts of fillings — first spicy soft cheese, and later sausage, onions, and a harder cheese. One interesting feature of this restaurant was the balmetto, a room that was dug back into the hillside for coolness. The first chamber had barrels and alcohol storage, and at the rear we could see a tunnel leading further underground.

As we wrapped up our dinner and prepared to drive to the church for our concert, the skies were giving rumbling warnings of rain to come. Sure enough, it began to come down as we were arriving at the church – our first serious rain of the week, and so welcome except for the timing! So we made plans to sing inside, with the rain conveniently suppressing the audience numbers to a size that would fit inside, yet still felt respectable and worthwhile. The stone vaulting of the church provided lively acoustics for our singing.

And what singing it was! A week of effort had paid off, and our sound felt like the best it had ever been. Early in the week, one of our instructors related a story about how as a very young singer, she had wanted to join an elite older group who were singing “magicals”. Of course, they turned out to be madrigal singers, but the memory stuck with her and even now she sometimes thinks of them as magicals. And so they were to us this night — it was truly a magical concert. Here’s a link to the recording of our performance of L’Usignole by Barbara Strozzi. It tells the story of Philomena, who has been transformed into a nightingale and sings about her rage at the betrayal of the king of Thrace. Another lovely and interesting piece was Barechu, by Salamone Rossi. Rossi was an Italian Jewish composer from Mantua who, in addition to writing many traditional madrigals in Italian, also set Jewish prayers in Hebrew to music in the madrigal style.

Following the final song we all went out to the square in front of the church for some cooler air. From their we were beckoned by a man leading us through a gate, which ended up taking us to a community hall where they had prepared a reception with refreshments. There was a platter of fancy cookies and drinks, including a liquid form of lemon sorbet poured from a pitcher. Of course it takes some time to come down to earth after a high like our performance, so even after leaving the reception many of us wanted to talk and reminisce at the hotel bar. We will see many at breakfast, but some will be leaving early in the morning to make their travel connections. Wherever they may go, we have made many new friends this week.