St. Stanislav Youth Choir and St. Stanislav String Orchestra took part in a music tour in Spain from 18th – 25th February 2023, which included also an Erasmus+ exchange visit of The Professional Conservatory of Music of Cartagena. This is how the entire event resonated with one of the enthusisastic participants.
“When we left the school at midnight on 18th February 2023, we were all tired because of the singing practice before, so we soon fell asleep on the bus. We made a stop in Montpellier, France, where we spent the night and visited the city centre later during the day. We also stopped at a beautiful antique town of Carcassonne. This is a charming little town, but its streets were deserted. We continued our way to Spain and arrived in Cartagena early in the morning, so we had some time to have brunch. We stayed in Cartagena for three days. In the mean time we had singing practices. We explored Cartagena’s streets, hidden places, cosy cafés and ancient highlights. At a fancy looking restaurant, called Mare Nostrum, we had lunch twice. I can say that the choice of food on the menu was interesting. On Tuesday we had a concert with one of the Spanish choirs in a local church in Murcia. Together we sang one Spanish and one Slovene song. We had another concert at the Conservatory of Music of Cartagena. While singing Raindrops keep falling on my head, the lights suddenly went out for a second or two, and it was quite a shock for some of us. Fortunately, they were on shortly after. The concert was a huge success, which was expressed by one of the thrilled visitors, a native Scot and a professional retired musician, with the following words: »Saw the concert on Tuesday night in Sucina – tremendous! The youth choir had a beautiful, rich sound with a fine balance between the voices in the a capella pieces. The whole programme had a good variety of music and the Spanish premiere of Močnik’s mass Missa St. Francisci Assisiensis was very well performed by choir and orchestra to an enthusiastic audience. Overall a great concert, really enjoyable and a worthwhile experience.”
It was time for us to leave for Barcelona. On the way we stopped in Valencia, a beautiful city, where we had a delicious lunch. We arrived in Barcelona in the evening, and as we were all really hungry, we went to a nearby Italian restaurant. The next day was our last day of the tour. Barcelona is a big city and has a lot of spectacular sights, but we only had time for Parc Güell, the majestic cathedral Sagrada Familia, La Rambla and the stadium Camp Nou. Some of us even managed to go to the beach where we took a quick swim in the cold sea. After a wonderful last day in Barcelona we said farewell to Spain and saved our memories in our hearts.
At the end of the tour Damijan Močnik, the conductor and leader of artistic activities at the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium, told us he was satisfied with the progress our choir had made and was proud of us for singing the whole concert program by heart.” /Maša Vintar, year 2/