50 members of Bracknell Choral Society were celebrating the culmination of our 50th Festival Year by participating in a singing tour of Tuscany – to be more precise we were in San Gimignano, a little town up in the Italian mountains. The weather was warm and sunny on arrival, but by the time we had deposited our concert dress and music folders in the Convento di Sant’Agostino, it was overcast and threatening rain. After a quick look at the church and cloisters, we went outside to find some lunch; by now it was raining, so we scurried to find shelter, food and drink. All of a sudden there was an ear-splitting crack of thunder, followed almost immediately by forked lightning. One of our sopranos was standing outside the church and narrowly escaped the bolt of lightning but the church was itself hit, setting off the burglar alarm and cutting the electricity supply.
By this time the rain was torrential and further peals of thunder and flashes of lightning followed in rapid succession. It was all most dramatic but the concert had to be delayed while an electrician came from Siena to repair the damage to the church and de-activate the alarm. During this time, we choir members finished our lunches and took ourselves to the shops for a little retail therapy; then came a second (or perhaps still the first, since there was no way for the storm to escape the surrounding mountains) electric storm. The very same soprano experienced a second near-miss and other choir members witnessed lightning strike the pavements. Eventually the concert was able to take place at 5pm, but we were severely shaken by these events and this might well have manifested itself in our performance, although we did receive a thank-you email from Austria from a honeymoon couple!
This Tuscan tour was organised by our Concert Manager, Margaret Haynes, as a fitting finale to our 50th Festival Year; it was a truly memorable trip, during which we were to see a wholly fresh side to many of our members and to bond in a superb fashion. Our hotel was in a spa town, Montecatini, where we also sang during mass at the Basilica di Santa Maria Asunta. But perhaps our finest hour was performing in Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Ricci, a beautiful church in Florence. Our new Musical Director, Greg Hallam, was with us every step of the way to encourage us and to sing some solo pieces. Accompanying us was James Gough, who coped admirably with a variety of keyboards, including one which he and Greg had to carry from the coach to each venue.
On our final evening we all gathered for a meal in a local restaurant, where we performed a couple of pieces impromptu in a flash-mob fashion, much to the delight of the waiters, proprietors and other diners. Some of us were astonished to discover that we did not know Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ as well as we had thought – or could it have been the effects of the local wine?
All in all, this was an unforgettable experience and one which we shall talk about for a long time.