The memorable stories are pouring in
– to arriving in Vienna and discovering their luggage had been
misplaced, to singing on a flight en route London, to ogling at St.
Stephen’s mummified right
”
holy
”
hand in Budapest to savoring authentic gelato.
The memorable stories are pouring in – to arriving in Vienna and discovering their luggage had been misplaced, to singing on a flight en route London, to ogling at St. Stephen’s mummified right “holy” hand in Budapest to savoring authentic gelato.
“My favorite moment was in Haydn Hall in Eisenstadt,” said senior alto Randi Groppe, 17. “As we were singing someone started holding the hand of the person next to them, and gradually everyone started holding each other’s hands. It’s like we were one unit.”
The 30-member Gilroy High School Chamber Choir is back from their epic nine-day singing tour in Europe, an occasion occurring once every three years that took more than $80,000 to fundraise at $2,700 a student.
GHS choir director Phil Robb said the luggage issue was the only major glitch for the 30 students and 14 chaperones.
“In London whenever you make connecting flights, it’s a zoo over there,” he said before class Thursday morning.
After returning safely April 9 and confronting jet lag, senior tenor Ryan Valentino-Pickett, 17 said singing in Haydn Church, another edifice also in Eisenstadt, was “awesome” since they could hear the reverberation of their singing several seconds after they had stopped. A priest who had been walking by outside, he said, was compelled to walk inside and tell the choir their voices “sounded like angels.”
Senior Dylan Jensen, 17, added stopping in random locations, breaking into spontaneous song and surprising passers-by was a highlight.
“Wherever we could find a dome or where there was good acoustics,” he said. “We just decided, ‘let’s sing here.’ ”
Ambling down the same alleyway Mozart once walked on his way to church, he added, wasn’t too shabby either.
Junior Roya Lillie, 16, loved the reception the choir received from people who weren’t expecting a live concert in the in the middle of the daily grind.
“People would just start gathering around us, not because they had to, but because they wanted to,” she said.
Like when the chamber singers filled a lower terminal in the San Francisco Airport with melody as they passed the time waiting for a flight.
“Everything stopped,” recalled Valentino-Pickett. “The people on the upper level were like birds above us, looking down at us singing.”
