Day 5 July 11, 2009

PGC Tour 2009
Day 5 July 11, 2009
Weren’t we just blogging a few hours ago? Oh right that was yesterday’s recap
SO
After somewhat of a leisurely morning –sleeping until 0722 heures – we picked up the ladies and again caught up with the host families and heard more comments about your wonderful children. Boarding our trusty autobus again we departed for the discussion given by Eric Whitacre at Le Mondial Choral Loto-Quebec, the choral competition happening in town. We were unbelievably blessed to be a part of his seminar. For an hour and a half he demonstrated, in his modest way, how incredibly brilliant he is and how he got to where he is. It was inspirational. He drew with flourish in the air how he creates and embellishes his creations. He primarily composes to poetry either newly or previously written and explained that he paints with music and uses blobs of music on canvas. So enthused were the girls that they got to meet him briefly, and he gracious, happily posed with the group. After our meeting a famous person, we traipsed off to find our lunch spot at Boston Pizza. Getting a tad lost because the hotel directions were SOOO bad, we had many slices of pizza and then took over the restaurant for the ninth grade’s paper plate awards. I think this event is a secret trip experience so I can’t say much about it, but all the girls thoroughly enjoyed it and everyone gets their day in the sun. After that we exchanged secret singer gifts as each person, including all the adults revealed who they thought their secret singer was. Of course we all cleverly had figured correctly and then we gave gifts to the person who had been trying to stump us. Back on the bus we headed over to the Cosmodome, Montreal Space Center, which is a space museum and … gift shop!! Most of us spent some money there. SHOPPING!! Of course by this time our day had turned from glorious and sunny to very wet and more wet. The rain was pelting down as we went in and even worse as we came out.
No matter we had another concert to perform at another senior center where there were many Jewish residents so we resurrected “Light One Candle” which brought tears to a few of our eyes. Audience participation made the song even more poignant and if any of you know me… The girls sang beautifully, when don’t they? And some of us acknowledged that this was their last tour concert and the last PGC concert for a few, including Mrs. Westrick. It was a lovely venue to end on as the seniors seem to be the most appreciative group for whom one can sing. We arrived in the pouring rain and had to carry the keyboard and stool in under those conditions, but when we left after singing “The Storm is Passing Over”, it was almost clear skies again. We did run into some flooding on the streets and the detour made by the bus was brilliant.
After our full afternoon we headed back to the community center (through the water puddles) to drop off the girls for dinner with their host families. Nine girls stayed with the chaperones (initially they weren’t so sure they liked this idea), because their host families could not get them back for our evening event in time. So we had nine adults and nine girls. The ratio was much more to our liking! After a sumptuous dinner at the hotel for the 18 of us, we once again boarded our trusty bus and headed to Sainte-Rose’ church for the concert. We met all the girls there and after an exciting wind storm we got inside where Eric Whitacre conducted 12 of his pieces. We were mostly seated in the balcony and had a good view of the chorus and him. He is still brilliant and we all loved the concert. While the concert was in session the rain pelted, the thunder clapped and the lightning flashed which clearly added to the music and Eric loved the external sound and light show. We even lost electricity at the very end of the song – it was almost as if the heavens were responding to his music! He had hoped it would return when he conducted his composition “Cloudburst”, but for that song it only rained. Most of the girls were met afterwards by their host families and a few we delivered back to the community center. We are getting pretty familiar with the layout in this area. We said our goodnights and told them we would be heading home tomorrow at 0730.
This is your blog master signing off. And if my secretary ever knew I could do this blogging, she would be shocked!! And probably quite impressed.
It’s been fun. I will do one more update tomorrow night with the remaining photos from tomorrow so stay tuned!!
2346 heures , gotta go do the photos now!!
Bonne Nuit! 0031 heure, 7-12-2009 Here is the link to today’s gorgeous photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/PGCTour2009/Day5July112009#

Thanks again to my assistant blogmaster, Cindy Batchelder