DAY 11 - 16 JULY Last Day of Europa Cantat junior Festival!

A free morning, followed by warm-up and rehearsal for the second Kreek Requiem performance in the wonderful Pärnu Concert Hall. Another great performance in front of the other participating choirs!

All of us pack before dinner in anticipation of our early departure on Sunday. Two funny Estonian clowns start the performance! All the Festival participants come together for the last concert, featuring the opera chorus, water songs, songs from musicals, and African music Ateliers. Everyone sings 2 of the favorite songs from Open Sing. Singers are exchanging contact information and hugs in the lobby afterwards – the end of a fantastic singing week!

Tomorrow, we’re on our way to LATVIA!

DAY 6 - 11 JULY Europa Cantat junior Festival!

We love Hannele! She has been so helpful, and is translating for us whenever we need it.

Today, our Atelier rehearsal is with the woman conductor of the Estonian youth choir. She has a beautiful singing voice and amazing vocal range. After lunch, we rehearse in the Concert Hall side lounge again, preparing for our 2 AYS performances (in addition to two of the Kreek Requiem) during the festival.

During our afternoon free time, we learn how to make glass jewelry (necklaces) at this cool art studio located at the Red Tower, a portion of the 15^th century town wall.

The daily Open Sing is again great fun – we learned songs in multiple languages and one by King Henry VIII, leaving early to walk to a soundcheck at the Beach Park tent.

After dinner, we walk back to the Beach Park for a concert featuring two young Estonian choirs and one from Belgium. A quick walk to the beach afterwards to play on the funky equipment, dip our toes in the Baltic (!!!!), and goof off in the sand a little before heading back on one of the local buses (free with our Festival nametags).

Tomorrow, our first tour performance!

DAY 5 - 10 JULY Pärnu, ESTONIA and the first full day of the Europa Cantat junior Festival!

Our first breakfast in Pärnu at the Georg Café next to Hommiku Hostel, cafeteria style with many options. Hannele, our wonderful guide/translator, meets us for the walk over to the Concert Hall for our first rehearsal with Maestro Kaljuste with both an adult and youth Estonian choir.

After a rigorous, interesting rehearsal, we go to the Festival food building for lunch – there will be lots of potatoes (and noodles), meat in sauce, and salads with lots of cabbage, with lots of unusual desserts to try. We rehearse in one of the side lounges in the Concert Hall and then break into groups to explore the Old Town shops and cafes (and ice cream vendors!).

The first Open Sing is great fun – two funny talented Estonian directors run the Open Sings with a different guest choir every day. We have been asked to do this on DAY 9. Today, we learned several songs from Estonia and one from South America (with dance moves).

The evening concert is a bit mind blowing, with great performances by the Estonian National Opera Boys Choir and Ellerhein Girls’ Choir. Our Singers are amazed by the young, featured boy soloist and also by the terrifying, otherworldly stage presence of the EGC – we won’t forget them for a very long time!

Hopefully, a better night’s sleep is in store – the weekend is over!

DAY 4 - 9 JULY Tallinn, ESTONIA and the first day of the 6th annual Europa Cantat junior Festival!

A very early start, eating breakfast and checking out of our hotel for a 7AM bus to the ferry terminal – the broad daylight helps ;)

All of our ferry tickets have our names on them (very cool to the Singers). We board the enormous Tallink Superstar! Some enjoy the deck, many enjoy a card game in the huge lounge or exploring the 5 floors of the ferry.

Arriving in ancient Tallinn is wonderful – we get to meet Aime Mark, our representative from the BaltoScandia tour company, in person at the terminal. Our guide Katrin is super, giving us a tour of the upper and lower Old Town and telling us very interesting stories about the towers Fat Margaret and Tall Herman! Helsinki is probably 500 years younger than Tallinn, so we see totally different sights and architecture. A GREAT view from the top of the highest hill looks out on the many red roofs of Old Town.

We also visit the famous Singing Festival grounds (also the site of the Singing Revolution in the 1980s), where 25,000 singers performed for over 90,000 audience members just last week. How cool is that?!?

Lunch is fun in lower Old Town, wandering in small groups through the old streets, trying delicious food, and enjoying/buying the interesting Estonian crafts and souvenirs.

Then a sleepy bus ride (with a brief rainstorm) south through the Estonian countryside to Pärnu for the 6^th annual Europa Cantat junior Festival, where we see several choruses walking in gaggles. Checking in at the Concert Hall, we get our passes, nametags, Open Sing songbooks, and programs – there’s the AYS name in print! We meet our cute, wonderful translator/companions Hannele and Eveliis – thank goodness we have them :)

Our communal soup dinner is followed by a fun Estonian choral and dance performance in the outside amphitheatre in Beach Park. 900 Singers are attending from Catalunya, other parts of Spain, France, Belgium, Estonia, and Taiwan!!

Our hotel is much more rustic than our Finnish one, fitting with the summer vacation town atmosphere, and is situated on the edge of Pärnu’s Old Town. It is also right next to a big late-night bar with live music (Linda Ronstadt’s Blue Bayou, as sung in Estonian by a man with an almost-Willie Nelson accent, anyone?) – we may be passing out earplugs to our Singers for the rest of the week! ;)

Tomorrow, our first Atelier to rehearse the Cyrillus Kreek Reekviem with conductor Tõnu Kaljuste!

DAY 3 - 8 JULY Suomenlinna, lunch in Market Square, Ainola, and the Glass Museum!

Everyone feels much better after a good sleep and a wonderful big breakfast! The whole group walked down to Market Square, oohing and aahing over the beautiful vegetables and berries for sale. A quick ferry ride to Suomenlinna, a fantastic sea fortress situated on several islands. After free exploring time, we took a guided tour to see the very old structures and walls, learn the interesting history of Swedish, Finnish and Russian control of the Fortress, view a huge dry dock where boats were built, and overlook a sweet little beach.

With Euros in pocket, everyone found lunch in Market Square at the many food stalls – salmon soup, fried herring, reindeer meatballs, juicy cherries, and yummy ice cream. Paige joined us in the afternoon, fresh off her long flight.

Our bus driver – also Pentti (Benedict in English) – was great, sharing interesting stories and fun Finnish words on the way to Ainola, the home of Jean Sibelius for most of his life. We learned about the colors Sibelius associated with keys – yellow and D Major, blue and A Major, red and C Major, green and F Major – and visited his grave.

Next was the Finnish Glass Museum, a fantastic collection of important examples of Finnish, Estonian, and Swedish glass artistry, as well as detailed displays of different glass production techniques. Many favorites amongst the Singers :) We spent a little time outside with some wonderful carved wood sculptures and little buildings.

Another dinner – with berry crepes! – at the hotel, followed by rehearsal in one of the conference rooms.

Very early tomorrow, we drive to Pärnu for the 6^th annual Europa Cantat junior Festival!