Tour Videos

Waiting that last month before the next University Singers concert? Why not fill the time with some videos from our European concert tour?

All of the videos from the competition laps of the Marktoberdorf competition are now available on our youtube channel. Videos from the rest of the festival, including the final concert and the prizewinners concert, are forthcoming.

In the meantime, we're also working on adding videos from our concerts throughout the tour. The first of these is Trond Kverno's "Ave Maris Stella" from our concert in the Knights' Hall of Brezice Castle, Slovenia. More videos like this will be coming soon! Keep watching!

Tour: Austria and Munich

Today the University Singers are in Munich, recording in the Himmelfahrtskirche. But more on that in a moment. First, let me finish reporting on Slovenia the right way: with some pictures.

After Gorizia came Koper, a beautiful town on the Adriatic Sea. Everyone enjoyed walking along the coast and doing a little swimming during the day. That evening, we sang in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.



Special thanks to the University of Primorska Academic Choir who hosted us for this concert!

The next day, we headed toward Ljubljana but first stopped in the Postojna caves. I wish I had a picture to show you from these caves; they are incredibly vast and amazing. The guide told us they were at least three million years old! But they said no photos, unfortunately. At the end, there is a very large cave that they call a concert hall and we got to sing a couple of songs there. Other tour groups were so interested in us they asked us when and where our next concert was!

For those that were staying in the area, they were in luck, because our next concert was in St. Jacob's Church in Ljubljana. We enjoyed getting to meet with and hear Urska Fabijan's Mysterium choir. It was also fun to sing with them!



The concert with Mysterium ended our time in Ljubljana, and we were sad to go. As I mentioned before, we really enjoyed ourselves there! Thanks again to everyone for the hospitality.

After Slovenia, we headed to Austria where we stayed in Salzburg for a couple of days. Of course, we made sure to see all the Sound of Music sights.



We also got to sing in the Salzburg Cathedral.



After enjoying some time in Salzburg on our own, we headed to nearby Bergheim to sing for Mass in the Pfarrkirche, and then perform a joint concert with the Volklslied Choir in the Pfarrkirche. It was fun to trade songs back and forth with the choir, and then to sing with them at the end.



Far too soon, we boarded the bus and left Austria, and arrived here in Munich on Thursday morning. Our purpose here is to record in the Himmelfahrtskirche. Those of you familiar with our repertoire and/or recording history may know that our CD A Jubilant Song was recorded in this same church several years ago. It's fun to be back!



We'll record a little bit more tomorrow morning and then we're off to Marktoberdorf! The festival starts on Friday with a big opening concert gala, and the competition starts on Saturday. We'll compete on both Saturday and Sunday. If there's internet access, I'll be sure to keep you updated!

Tour: Good job, Slovenia!

This is just a quick post as we leave Ljubljana and Slovenia as a whole. We all thoroughly enjoyed our time here. The food is good, the country is beautiful, and the people are so friendly, kind, hospitable, and appreciative. The choir as a whole cannot stop talking about how wonderful our time here has been, and we will never forget this experience!

Thank you very much to our hosting choirs! It was a pleasure meeting you and working with you. Good luck to all of you in the future!

Today we head off to Salzburg, where we will all endlessly sing from The Sound of Music and all of the operas by Mozart. And probably a few symphonies too. We aren't picky.

More pictures hopefully to come in the last leg of our tour. Marktoberdorf is just a few short days away...wish us luck!

Thanks again, Slovenia! We love you.

Tour: Slovenia

I was going to post a video of us singing "Behold, This Is the Way" (by Robert Cundick) in the cathedral in Esztergom, but the internet connection in our way-high-up-in-the-mountains hostel here in Korte, Slovenia is a bit sketchy. After an hour of waiting for it to upload, I've decided sleep is more important. Hopefully I'll be able to post it later. Sorry!

Anyway, the last couple of days we've spent very close to the Slovenian border. On Saturday, we were in Gorizia, which is a city that spans both Slovenia and Italy. We spent the day on the Slovenian side, then gave a concert on the Italian side in the Kulturni Center.



The concert was great! When we sang our Slovenian folk songs, the audience went absolutely wild. One choir member commented that it was like we had just finished a rock concert. They leaped to their feet and cheered. All of us were surprised and extremely gratified by the reaction. I have never experienced anything quite like it!

Also, we loved Gorizia because they fed us really well. Ice water! Real honest to goodness ice water! Nearly unheard of! Air conditioning and ice water: things you should not ever take for granted.



After Gorizia, we traveled to Koper, which is a city on the coast of Slovenia by the Adriatic Sea. (Right across the bay is Venice, if that helps you find it on a map.) We sang in the beautiful Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.



Again, the audience was just wonderful. Every time we sing, I am moved by their passion and interest in what we are doing. When you tour, you run the risk of getting tired of singing the same pieces time after time, even when you have a lot of repertoire to choose from. We all work very hard not to go on autopilot when we sing, but I think the audiences really do a lot to make each performance unique and fresh. I think I can speak for the whole choir when I say we really love our audiences!

Next up is Ljubljana, and then we say goodbye to Slovenia and head to Austria and Germany. Bavaria, here we come!

Tour: National Theatres and Knight's Halls

As promised, here is a better update about Croatia. Varazdin is a beautiful little town and we were very excited to perform there. They seemed to be excited to have us, as there were posters of us all over the town!



We did spend a lot of time in rehearsal for the few days we stayed, but we were also privileged to meet with some government representatives while we were there. They told us some of the history of the town and made us feel quite welcome. They told us that Varazdin has a rich history of choral singing, and so everyone was very excited for our concert that night. The Croatian people are very friendly and warm! We all managed to squish into the reception room to meet with the representatives, and we even sang for them while we were there.



On Thursday, we performed in the concert hall of the Croatian National Theatre. The building was built in the late 19th century. It was really hot. I mean, really hot. But the audience was so receptive that the energy was just fantastic. It was a great concert despite the heat.



Today, we bid farewell to Croatia and came to Slovenia. We are staying for one night in the city of Brezice, where we performed tonight in the Knight's Hall of Brezice Castle. This hall is truly amazing. It took our breath away when we walked in. This picture, unfortunately, does not do it justice as the light in the evening was bad. But it is really beautiful with an amazing acoustic.



The concert tonight was really incredible. We got to sing Slovenian folk songs to Slovenians in their native tongue! I'm not sure how good our pronunciation was, but it was really fun to be able to sing to them in their own language, and they seemed to really enjoy it. I think we all felt really good about our performance tonight. Things just seem to be getting better and better!

Tomorrow we head to Italy to perform in Gorizia, and then we'll be back in Slovenia on Sunday. I'll do my best to update as much as possible!