In an English Country Garden

Just feast your eyes - isn't it exquisite? It's Stourhead, a world class landscape garden owned by the National Trust. This is the view which greeted us as we arrived yesterday for The Festival of the Voice, 30 choirs singing in 8 locations throughout the gardens from 11am to 6pm.

Our choir merges with 2 others to form the Wiltshire Wailers, a 100 strong group for special occasions. It was our second public performance ever yesterday (I blogged about the first one here) and we must have been the largest choir there. You can see both places where we performed - stretched out on the bridge in the morning and then perched on the steps of the Pantheon across the lake in the afternoon. The second performance in particular was magical. As Chris our choirmaster said 'We formed last September, this is our second ever perfomance and we're going to sing our socks off!' So we did. My friend overheard someone say 'That choir [us] were amazing and we had to follow them!'

We sang:
Unison in Harmony - my favourite
Quand je Bois - a French drinking song
Ca' the Yowes - a Robert Burns poem
Lily of the Valley - a spiritual adopted into the Welsh hymnal
Light my Fire - as in The Doors (skip the first 40 seconds) and Jose Feliciano
Big Milly's Backyard - a song about a Ghanaian backpackers' hostel
Plovi Barko - a Croatian love song
Fernando - yes, the ABBA song and a real crowd pleaser

Comments

  1. Texas Travelers12 May 2008 at 04:56

    Beautiful and great song list.

    I have ABBA on my song list at the bottom of the page. It's not automatic.

    Thanks for sharing the experience. It must have been wonderful.

    Come visit,
    Troy and Martha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frankie 12 May 2008 at 22:06

    gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. McGregor's Daughter12 May 2008 at 22:30

    That's an eclectic song list! (I wonder if Jim Morrison's turning over in his grave at having one of his songs performed with "Fernando.") I have seen photos of this garden, but I can't imagine how wonderful it must be to see it in person. There's something magical about singing in a really cool place. Wow.
    (Word verification the very silly "eekptj," looks like something I've seen on a license plate.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Viooltje14 May 2008 at 17:11

    Wish I could have been there to hear the magic sounds in such a wonderful setting. And I don't mean that because of Plovi barko (lol), but for the fact that your song list is really amazing. What a thrill!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Suburbia14 May 2008 at 20:45

    That must have been such a brilliant event. We have been to Stourhead twice now, so beautiful. You were lucky with the weather too

    ReplyDelete
  6. VP14 May 2008 at 20:46

    TTs - It was a fab day. We're doing a charity event next with a new set of songs

    Frankie - it's a great place!

    MMD - I don't think Jim Morrison would have minded - the crowd cheered when his song was announced

    Viooltje - I thought of you each time we sang Plovi Barko. So glad you came over to visit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. VP14 May 2008 at 20:47

    Suburbia - sorry to miss you out. We all came back a little sunburnt - much better than being rained on!

    ReplyDelete

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