Welcome to the village of Streatley! (I’m told it is not a town, or a borough, or a suburb, but a village! Just to save you the embarrassment of mis-speaking to the village crier!)
While today’s schedule is a bit fluid depending on check-in processes and how long it takes a village to feed 70 travel-weary humans, I have posted, below, an intended rehearsal schedule for this afternoon.
The purpose of today’s rehearsal is multi-dimensional:
- Keep you awake as best as I am able so you get on the right sleep schedule.
- Run several pieces that I think will be in need of particular TLC in the coming days.
- Get accurate timings on our competition repertoire so we know we’re within the competition limits.
- Test out the Mealor Shakespeare set to see if there’s a rat’s chance of recording that at the end of the trip
- Read the two additional spirituals that many of you haven’t seen yet. (Give me Jesus and My Lord What a Mourning – Are those on your iPads yet?)
- Reaffirm your reason for living by singing together for the first time with every single choir member in the room at the same time.
So here’s my proposed rehearsal plan. If we get started late, everything will slide back accordingly. (You will have the evening at leisure.)
- 2h10 – Warm-ups @ St. Mary’s
- 2h 18- Dove – Seek Him
- 2h28 – Bruckner – Os Justi
- 2h35 – Lauridsen set in order (Do we have a grip on the languages?)
- La Nuit
- Noche
- Sure on This Shining
- Voici
- 3h05 – COMPETITiON ONE – Check timings and pray for Petrassi
- Fine – Jealousy
- Mealor Suo Gan
- Mthembu – Alleluia
- Petrassi – Nonsense
- 3h35 – BREAK!
- 3h50 – Mealor – Windows
- 4h02 – Britten – Lamb first movement that the Alphabet section
- 4h15 – COMPETITION TWO – Check timings and figure out cuts for Even Me
- He’s Got the Whole World
- Even Me
- Soon I Will Be Done
- 4h50 – Dawson – My Lord
- 5h00 – Rodgers – Give Me Jesus
- 5h10 – C’est finis!
I suspect there will be several announcements at this point, including places you might go seeking out food and such.
After today, my notes and Rachel’s notes will be combined into a singular post, released early by 7:00 am each morning. But for now, I’ll paste in the text for Rachel’s previous post below…
Good morning everyone! Welcome to the UK!
I (Rachel!) will post an update just like this every morning on the trip. If something changes, I’ll change it HERE and send a WhatsApp telling you to check the daily itinerary for changes so that your email doesn’t get bulked up with random two-line updates that you have to track. Everything you need for the day is here. If you are a planner, you can still look ahead to all the other days via the Itinerary Page! This will be the most specific, up to date, day-to-day information.
Here’s the specifics of what today, MONDAY JULY 3 looks like.
- Meet Rachel and Jay at the airport. Aiming for 10:30 at the Slipstream Sculpture in Terminal 2. If you are lost, call me! Text me! WhatsApp me! 1-201-919-0759. We’ll then take the bus to Streatley.
- In Streatley, we will unload everyone at The Swan Hotel, at which point we will divide for lunch and drop bags. Check the room assignment list for where you are staying! Use the tabs at the bottom to navigate between the different locations.
- People staying at the Swan will get their bag off the bus, drop their bag temporarily in Jay or Sarah’s room, and follow staff to The Miller for lunch.
- People staying at the Youth Hostel (YHA) will get their bag, follow staff to the youth hostel, drop bags in your specific rooms, and then follow staff to The Bull for lunch.
- After lunch, we will ALL go to rehearsal at St. Mary’s Church around 2:00 pm, which is directly across the street from the Swan Hotel.
- We’ll rehearse until around 4:30-5, depending on when we started. Swan Hotel people will then officially get checked into their rooms, and then we’ll set you all free for the evening to get yourself dinner either in town, across the footbridge in Goring, where there is also a grocery store (you have a lovely kitchen, YHA people!), or a short train ride away into Reading.
That’s it! Preview of tomorrow, TUESDAY JULY 4 (cue fireworks): Rehearsal, group lunch, rehearsal, dinner on your own.
As always, reach out with questions or concerns! –Rachel 1-201-919-0759
So pleased you’re all on the ground. Can hardly wait to see you, and even MORE eager to hear you! 🙂
A bientôt!
pdh