SVCC Tour: Day Three, Part Two

The first post in this series is here.  The second is here.  The third is here.  The fourth is here.  The fifth is here.

When I left off in this (long, terribly drawn out) saga (why, oh why, haven't I finished this yet? at this rate, our tour will be ancient history by the time I finish my account of it!), we had just finished a lovely lunch in a very unique building; but as pretty as that structure was, it couldn't compare to what was to come.  

This.

This was the location of our second concert that weekend, and you couldn't have picked a prettier place for it.  Everything about it was beautiful!

Ah, the red garment bags!  The sight of them makes me smile, although during the tour, they caused some degree of stress at times.  ;-)

In the first room we were ushered into, the first thing that attracted my attention was this huge bouquet of gorgeous flowers on a table in the center of the room.  I didn't yet know just how many flowers we would see in that building.

After a few minutes to get settled, our choir moved into the sanctuary to begin rehearsing; and I meandered along more slowly, pausing to absorb the beauty around every corner...

...and to try to capture it with my camera.

Of course, that was an impossible task!  The space was immense and had so much ornateness.  Everywhere I turned, there was something interesting to the eye, something that I would have liked to photograph in more detail.  But meanwhile, the music was beginning...

Just like the location for our Friday night concert, this venue presented its fair share of challenges, when it came to arranging our choir in rows--and even more so when the Virginia Children's Chorus arrived and the two choirs stood together.  But while our brilliant directors and parent assistants put their heads together to figure out how to make all the logistics work...

...I wandered around and played.  :)  With my camera, that is.  :)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, surely a video would be worth a million, because then you could HEAR and know firsthand how incredible the sound was as it came from our choir and filled this space.  Breathtaking!

Part of being in the SVCC is learning to conduct oneself with dignity and grace, not only while on stage performing, but also while walking to and from the performance area...

...and also while waiting in the pews for one's turn.

It isn't a time to goof off.  ;-)

Our choristers look quite impressive, if I do say so myself.  :)

(And I do!)  :)

I think all of us in the SVCC sort of adore Maurita, our accompanist.  :)

For all of her talent (which is considerable!), she is incredibly humble, approachable, laid-back, warm, inviting, encouraging, and friendly.

She's simply a jewel!

The sight of this empty, waiting music stand in the photo below gives me such a delicious sense of expectancy.  :)

The two choirs rehearsed together...

 ...and then there was time for a short break before the concert began.

 While walking through one of the halls, I saw this.

 A flower guild?!  No wonder they have so many beautiful flowers in so many places throughout the building!

 I'll also mention here that when we first arrived, some of the worshipers from the morning were still there, and we noticed that the women were wearing gorgeous hats.  I wondered if they did that every week, but we later found out that the congregation was following the example of their British counterparts and was celebrating the Queen's birthday!  Part of the observance included wearing lovely hats, but I didn't get any pictures of those.  ;-)

That music stand again!  The expectancy!

 And then the concert began, and I took only a few pictures, preferring instead to let the sound wash over me as the voices soared...

 Sometimes words fail...

 After the concert, we enjoyed a jubilant time of fellowship; that performance high sure is fun to experience.  :)

 I think it was Dr. V. who suggested this picture below - what a hoot!  No one could ever accuse her of being stuffy!  :)

During this time of after-concert picture-taking, one of the worst parts of the trip happened: Sherry, one of the chaperons, bumped her leg/ankle into the conductor's box that was in the middle of this (narrow!) aisle.  Actually, "bumped" is misleading, since it was quite a hard hit, and it caused her a lot of pain.  Fortunately, one of the other chaperons, Keith, is a doctor and was able to check it right away to see what needed to be done.  Suffice it to say that Sherry spent the rest of the tour in a wheelchair--not her preferred mode of transportation certainly, but much better than needing to go to the hospital for a broken bone.  We all felt so bad about it!

For me, this concert was the highlight of Day Three, but it wasn't the end of it!  There is more of Day Three to come (and surely it won't take me as long to finish the next blog post as it did this one, right?).  :)