Back Home from France, sigh…

The last of the summer European tours is behind us. The Rose Ensemble headed out to Paris and Tours for a whirlwind 4 days in France with 2 concerts in different cities. We had a blast. The first concert, part of the Festival d’Ile de France, was in an ancient cathedral (not surprising) in the village of Larchant near famous Fontainbleu, about an hour’s drive from Paris.

The church building has attracted pilgrims from the 12th century onwards and was witness to the religious turmoil that characterised medieval French history. Evidence of this is found in the ruins of part of the building that has been preserved for us to see today.

The acoustics are sweet. We performed our Hawaiian show here with the full band, Greg Hippen on acoustic bass, David Burke on ukelele and guitar, and Wade Oden on guitar, along with a new arrangement of Lili’u e for the women - sultry and warm, like a summer’s day on the beach in Waikiki.

Jordan & Tim left a few days earlier to teach a Hawaiian music master class to a local French choir. In the six hours, they learned and performed for the crowd three Hawaiian songs before our concert on the outside steps and came up to join us in the last number, Hawaii Aloha. Although amateur, they sang loud and proud and did a respectable job not having much exposure to the language.

We were filmed for French TV, recorded for France Radio and interviewed. After the 4:30 concert I was hoping to get back to the hotel in enough time to hop the Metro to some of the Parisian sites later that evening, but we didn’t get back to our hotel in Paris until 10pm after sitting in 2 hours of traffic.

Dinner was on the agenda at this point, which isn’t easy to find on a Sunday night, even in Paris, but we managed to find a nice cafe at the end of our block in the Place d’Italie.  And not too bad, I might add.  I had this incredible salad of lettuce, thin green beans, thick bacon pieces, fried potato slices, and all this topped with two duck thighs, brilliant. Oh yeah, finish this off with probably the best creme brullee and you won’t miss the fact that you just spent 5 euro 40 on a cup of coffee.

The next morning, an early train at 9am to leave for Tours. I wrote a little history about our Sister City in my last blog, so I’ll try not to bore you again. We arrived safe & without incident, checked into our quaint Hotel l’Europe very close to the train station and then met in the lobby to walk to our venue for the next night’s concert at the Eglise Notre Dame La Riche for the opening of the Festival de Musiques Anciennes.

The walk was a good half-hour and led us through the Medieval quarter of the City. When you walk through this area, just think of the Canterbury Tales - timber exposed buildings with wood-carved cornices that still remain today and saved from demolition in the 1970s. You seriously have to thank the Gods for that. Today it is a bustling area full of shoppes and cafes, and some incredible ruins of the once vast Basilica of St. Martin.

According to history, the church was completely demolished in 1793 during the Revolution. All the remained of the basilica was the two towers which are still standing. To ensure the basilica could not be rebuilt, the atheistic municipality caused two streets to be opened up on its site.

After our 3-hour rehearsal for the Slavic show, we hurried back to our hotel to change for a dinner with the City officials at the beautiful Hotel d’Ville.

Great conversation, wonderful food, and gifts from the City welcomed us, in a way, back home to the first European city we had the priviledge to sing in, almost 3 years ago.  It was wonderful to see the familiar faces of Bruno and Marie-Bernarde as well as meet new friends and the director of Diablous Musicus, who The Rose Ensemble will be presenting in early November in Minneapolis.

Tuesday was a mostly free day.  I wandered the streets of the city, past the glorious 13th century Cathédrale Saint-Gatien de Tours, home to some incredible 13th century stained glass, most notably the St. Martin Window, then finding myself looking down at the Loire River rushing under the bridge, and then leisurely walking up the Rue Nationionale lined with its expensive boutiques and department stores.

Most of us met for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in Tours, Au Martin Bleu.  The food is still remarkable and highly recommended for anyone that has the chance to visit Tours.  My meal started with a salad with Scallops St. Jacques, lightly grilled and melt-in-your-mouth good.  My second course main entree consisted of lamb chops in a beautiful demi-glace with roasted potatoes and fresh vegetables.  Yum.  I actually passed on the dessert, since this was a meal that was costing me about 25 euros, but from what I witnessed and got to taste, the prize was the homemade lavendar ice cream.  A vanilla based ice cream, extremely rich and creamy with a hint of fresh lavendar, not at all perfumey, but delightful.

Our concert went well that evening, and we were once again treated out to dinner at 10:30pm at one of the medieval cafes by our City hosts.

Goodbyes were said around 1am and we all sang Namalakama la and Aloha O’e for the restaurant staff and new friends.  Alas, remains of packing still to be done and an early train still awaited us at 7:30 the next morning for our trip home.

As always, your comments are more than welcome!  Stay in touch and thank you for your continued support!

~Lisa

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Well, our last European tour of the summer is rapidly approaching.  On September 12th The Rose Ensemble will board a plane and fly to Paris where we have been invited to perform our Hawaiian program at the Festival d’Ile de France in the Eglise Saint-Mathurin de Larchant on Sunday, September 14th.

The Festival d’Ile de France welcomes between 20,000 and 25,000 spectators for each season. For each show, the Festival d’Ile de France makes both musical discovery and the discovery of regional heritage coincide. This relationship is, from the beginnings of the festival, an essential element of its identity. Music and locations are selected in close relation, so that the container and the contents mutually provide meaning and emotion.

The public is not misled by this: the musical enthusiast comes in search of the various locations that are often inaccessible to the public, such as châteaux, churches, theatres, circuses, old factories or picturesque farms. Every year, the Festival settles in new places.

Our venue is one that is not to be missed on this Festival.  This is a 12th century gothic cathedral in the village of Lechant, one of the villages just south of Paris on the Compostella route.

Our concert will be recorded by Radio France and broadcast throughout the listening area.  We are thrilled to be part of this incredible festival.

From Paris, we will journey on Monday to the Loire Valley to Minneapolis’ Sister City, Tours.  Our first adventure to Europe in 2005 was in this lovely city, rich with history dating back to the Romans with archeological relics and catholic history dating back to St. Martin of Tours.

(excerpt from wikipedia)
In Gallic times the city was important as a crossing point of the Loire. Becoming part of the Roman Empire, during the 1st century after J.-C., the city was named “Caesarodunum” (”hill of Cesar”). The name evolved in 4th century when the original Gallic name, Turones, became first “Civitas Turonorum” then “Tours”. It was at this time that the amphitheatre of Turns, one of the five largest in the Empire, was built. Tours became the metropolis of the Roman province of Lyon towards 380-388, dominating the Loire Valley, Maine and Brittany. One of the outstanding figures of the history of the city was Saint Martin, second bishop who divided his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. This incident and the importance of Martin in the medieval Christian Occident made Tours, and in particular Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, a major centre of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages.

In the 6th century Gregoire de Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, made his mark on the town by restoring the cathedral destroyed by a fire in 561. The Saint Martin’s monastery benefited from its inception, at the very start of the 6th century, from patronage and support from the Franc king, Clovis the first, which increased considerably the influence of the saint, the abbey and the city in Gaule. In the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian Rebirth, in particular because of abbatial of Alcuin with Saint Martin. In 845, Tours pushed back a first attack of the Viking chief Hasting. In 850, the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine and the Loire. Always led by Hasting, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and the abbey of Marmoutier.

During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The “City” in the east was composed of the archepiscopal unit (cathedral and residence of the archbishops) and of the castle of Tours, sites of the authority comtale (tourangelle then angevine) and royal. In the west, the “new city” structured around the Saint Martin’s abbey was emancipated from the City during the 10th century (an enclosure is built towards 918) and became “Châteauneuf”. This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the economic center of Tours. Between these two centres remained Varenne, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century. Tours is a model of the medieval double city.

It is to this city that we will be bringing our beautiful Slavic program featuring music from the Fire of the Soul and Slavic Wonders discs to the opening concert of the festival de Musique Anciennes in the beautiful Notre Dame la Riche on Tuesday, September 16th.  Unfortunately, we are not afforded a lot of time on this trip.  We leave the following day for home.

Such is the life of a singer on the road and so will end our summer journeys.  As always, I welcome your comments and thank you for your support! ~Lisa Drew

A wonderful three weeks in France has come and gone and we have so many great memories from this tour.  It’s hard to describe the experience of singing music written for churches of the medieval period when you sing them in the buildings they were designed for.

These buildings have amazing natural acoustics, something that is somehow forgotten in this age of technology and mechanical amplification.  One amazing experience I had was while seated behind the alter of the cathedral in Vaison.

During the concert it is our custom to try to sit off stage while a smaller group is performing.  In this case, the seating available to us was in a sunken area behind the alter in the cathedral.  This area is shaped in a U formation out of stone with stone benches all resembling a small amphitheater.  The sound was incredible.  Even though our colleagues were singing with their backs to us, it was as if they were being electronically amplified (I kept checking for speakers!).  This will definitely remain as one of my more remarkable memories.

Our bus ride to Paris was stunning.  The weather couldn’t have been better the week we were in Provence.  We headed out on a Saturday morning, August 2nd.  Typical of European schedules, this also begins the month of Holiday, where most companies close down for the summer and allow everyone to be on vacation.  That being the case, the freeway to Lyon was jammed and we were advised to follow the back roads until we could pass Lyon.  Poor us.  Subjected to the French countryside.  Like we could complain.

We traveling through small villages, rolling hills of grape vines, sunflowers, and lavender just past its prime and harvested for its fragrant purple blossoms.  I did manage to find two fields that had not yet been harvested and that gave me the impression of what this countryside looks like when in full bloom.  Wow.

I got a kick out of our bus stopping at lights and the townsfolk looking in the bus to see who we were (there was a sign on the front of our bus with The Rose Ensemble from Minnesota USA.)  One stop in particular awarded me a man raising his glass of beer while all I could do was raise my water bottle at the time.  Another stop a couple of friendly men waived to us while making Paella.  (why couldn’t we stop here for lunch??)

We stopped instead and had a picnic lunch (pique-nique in French) under the trees in a lovely park and said goodbye to our friends Anne-lise and Eric.   Kathy’s son was able to enjoy the pool while our bus driver Roland took his much needed rest.  We still had a ways to go.

The total trip was about 13 hours that day ending up at an International YMCA for a late night supper and sleep before heading to the airport the next morning.  Our 11 hour flight home was uneventful.

It is good to be back home and relive the stories of our journey with my friends and family.  Wonderful memories, new friends and lots of photos (over 800).

The Rose Ensemble will begin recording its 8th CD over the 3rd weekend in August, I have a wonderful photo show currently on display through September 17th (www.lisadrewphotos.com), and choir resumes on September 3rd.   Looking forward to sharing more tales of touring with The Rose in the upcoming months!

As always, I welcome your comments!  Thanks for your support! -Lisa

This is just stunning.  After an 8 hour drive from Autun thru ever changing landscape and vast vineyards and a brief stop in Cluny, we  reached the ancient city of Vaison la Romaine.

Taken over from the Celts by the Romans in the 2 BC, the city is one of 2 parts.  The old medieval city and  Cathedral rests on the side of a mountain, while the modern city is situated below with its shoppes for tourists of all kinds.  Bath salts, gauzy clothing, aperitifs that you can dispense by the bottle, nick-knacks, everything you would want in a tourist area.  The terrain reminds me very much of Southern California and Arizona- dry landscape, almost sandy soil and Mediterranean vegetation.

Our accommodations are located about 10-15 walk along the river to the town.  We are staying in a school that was built for music students and upon arrival were promptly greeted by two beautiful white horses that reside on the grounds.  Practice rooms everywhere and a salon where recitals and master classes are held.  Currently, there is a group of string students residing here with us from Japan, parts of Europe and America. Music can be heard from all over the complex until about 10pm.

Breakfast was lovely - a hearty tropical granola, yogurt, fresh fruit from the area and good coffee and juice.  Lunch is with everyone from the Festival including the students, so it’s quite busy.  Served buffet style and mostly fresh light salads.  The weather is quite hot, so the cool salads and melons are welcomed after a walk into town and back. I can see the afternoons being rather restful, although as I type this blog, there is a group of students playing soccer in the common area outside my window.  Ah the young.

Tonight we have our first concert in quite a few days and I’m looking forward to it now that the Faure Requiem is over.  We will be singing in Valreas, about 1/2 hour from here.  We have our own small bus for this week and a great driver named Roland.  This gives us the opportunity to spend a little time in the village before we sing - something I missed doing in Italy.

Tomorrow is market day in Vaison - world famous and we are looking forward to hopefully finding the things that we have heard so much about Provence.  Lavender, Fleur de Sel, herbs de Provence, among many others.

I am once again without a continuous stream of Internet, in fact I have heard rumor of one Ethernet port in this whole school.  Blogs will be few, but I hope to have the opportunity to post a little, as well as feature photos on a new page that will be coming soon to this site of my summer travels.

Wishing you all a wonderful day.  I welcome your comments!  -Lisa

It’s Wednesday, and that means Market Day in Autun. After coffee with my friend Ginna, I wandered over to see what was for sale.

Every Wednesday and Friday until about 1pm lots of vendors displaying their (uhm) wares.  You can find everything from cheap jewelry to shoes to clothing and even French underwear. Yes, brassieres on display in all their frilly french glory. Only in France.

There was a wonderful inside market area under the city hall  where you can find fresh fruit, cheeses, veggies, meats, breads, olives and garlic - I even saw a vendor selling fresh pigeon.  Not my first choice for poultry.

For the past week, we have been rehearsing every morning at 9am for the Faure Requiem which we will perform on Friday and Saturday nights.  Rose was excused from rehearsals this morning which was a blessing since we didn’t return home from our concert until 1am.   This gave me the opportunity to explore.

Today is a glorious day - warm, not a cloud in the sky and a nice mountain breeze and I actually got to sleep in until 10! The temps here are quite cool actually, in fact the other night after our concert we could actually see our breath.  The village concerts have been quite lovely and the reception and food glorious.  I have not been too thrilled with the cafeteria they have set us up with in Autun, especially the distance we have to walk to get there, so I have mostly made due with frugal meals of baguettes and cheese when we are not being fed by one of the local villages we travel to for an evening concert.

That leads in to my discussion on food comas.  Last night our concert was in a small village, Saint Symphonieon, where we had a meal of fresh lettuce with a Dijon dressing, tomatoes and basil and the main entree was a lasagna of sorts - fresh spinach (I’ve been dying here without fresh veggies that aren’t over cooked) salmon, a thin layer of pasta and topped with a béchamel sauce and cheese.  Oh my gods.

For dessert, homemade creme bruelle, fresh fruit salad and vanilla and chocolate mousse.  They insist on feeding us right up until concert time and offer us wine.  A glass does me just fine, and I have fallen in love with the Kir appertif - creme de cassis dijon in vin blanc.  Very yummy.  Singing with a food coma, that’s an experience on its own.

When given the opportunity, I have had a couple of really good meals out.  A favorite restaurant is Petit Rolin - just next to the great Cathedral.  I think this is what really ruined me with the cafeteria.  One taste of the exquisite french cooking and you really don’t want to go back to the cafeteria.  The photo shown is a local specialty of Morvan the Bourgognion de Canard (duck in a burgundy wine sauce) with mushroom and potato.  I enjoyed my first taste of this so much I had to go back with Linda, Kris and John for seconds.

They had a special appertif on the menu, a blu Rolin (Bob, you know I couldn’t resist this one) Basically a martini with blue Curacao.

For dessert, crepes with chocolate, honey and walnuts, and a creme bruelle l’orange. I swear, I don’t think I will ever order creme bruelle outside of France again.  It was idyllic and once again, the food coma set in.

Enough! I’m hungry, so what am I going to do?  Why go to lunch! Au revoir, mes amis!

Your comments are always welcome and a pleasure to read.  Apologies in advance for any misspelled words in the above blog.  -Lisa

Welcome to Brion, France.  A small village with an estimated population of about 200 in the Morvan outside of Autun.  The Rose Ensemble had an extraordinary concert there last evening.

Our bus arrived at this lovely little church for our pre-concert rehearsal.  The priest is very conservative, so we were asked not to perform our Hawaiian chants and hula.  The women were also to cover any bare shoulders while in the church.

Rehearsal went well, the acoustics were splendid,  and we were then bussed over to where we were being served dinner before the show.

We ate in a small dining room with the notables of the village - a glorious green salad with a light vinaigrette, fresh tomatoes with parsley and basil, lovely bread and a main course of fresh ham.  Wine on the table was a delightful red, of which we couldn’t have much of before we performed, but the promise was there that there would be wine after the concert.

Dessert was splendid.  I had this fresh apricot tart that practically exploded in flavor.

After dinner we were bussed back to the church for our concert.  To our amazement, cars were parked everywhere and the church was packed to capacity. We later found out that they had no idea this many people would show up for the concert and we were honored with the attendance.  It was standing room only and people were actually sitting on the floor. Patrick McDonough, one of our board members and guest on this trip, actually had to set up the table for CDs outside the church and sat out there during the show.

It turned quite chilly that evening with the clear sky and the full moon, that Patrick mentioned when the sun went down, he leaned against the building to keep warm. (you could actually see your breath that night)  We sold close to 50 CDs, a record for this trip so far.

After the concert there was a reception with lots of bubbly wine that we can’t call champagne and homemade desserts.  We sang a couple of Early American tunes for the guests and then bussed home when we arrived around 1am.

Rehearsal was a little rough this morning.  I think it’s nap time.  I feel like I could sleep like the dead.

Your comments are always welcome - I look forward to hearing from you! -Lisa

I love France.  I love the people, the villages, the churches we sing in, and oh yeah, can’t forget to give homage to the baguette.  That lovely soft, slightly salty soft center with the golden brown crispy crust.

Today is Sunday, a free day forus, and I just had coffees with Linda, Kris, Ginna and her friends from Canada that have joined us on this leg of the trip.  We sat at a lovely cafe near the carousel just outside of the church were Napoleon & Joseph Bonaparte attended while they lived in Autun for a few months.

Heather and I had a wonderful surprise the other day when we met up with our host family from Neuss, Germany after our first concert at the Cathedral.  They were in town for the wedding of their nephew about 10 km outside of Autun and were staying here for the week.  They took us to lunch the next day where we dined on Bourgeoning de Canard (duck in a burgundy wine sauce, a local fare) and Crepes fommage (swiss cheese & egg crepes). We were able to catch up about their family since it has been a couple of years since were stayed with them last .

After a morning of rehearsals yesterday with the other singers for the Faure Requiem, we left for our concert last night in a village named Perreuil, about a 45 minute drive from Autun. 

In 1944 Perreuil was liberated from Germany in WWII during an American air strike when an American pilot flying a Thunderbolt P47 was shot down over the village.  A monument was erected to commemorate and pay respect to this pilot, Lt Leroy Saunders of Connecticut.  Our bus stopped to pick up the mayor and other town dignitaries so that a bouquet of flowers could be laid at the monument site.  When we placed the flowers, we sang a touching verse of “America the Beautiful” in 4 part harmony.

We were then treated to dinner where we were served a wonderful aperitif of the local area of creme de cassis and white wine as a toast followed by jamon & a salami, bread, and omlette with pork as the entree.  It is tradition to sprinkle a little red wine vinegar on your eggs which most of the Ensemble tried.  I get violently ill from eating eggs, so I had to abstain. A course of Camembert cheese followed and then some lovely pastries with creme fresche and coffee.  Now we had to sing…

And sing we did.  It was a fun show - Jordan basically programmed music from all of our CDs, so variety was the theme for the evening.  I think the best part was when Kim came out in the 2nd half of the show in her traditional Hawaiian dress with the ipu.  The reaction of the crowd was filled with ooo’s and ah’s and lots of whispering.  We ended our show with a sing along of “Jesus the Light of the World” with great participation.  We were presented with a bouquet of flowers, a couple of bottles of wine from the local vineyard and a copy of the town’s newspaper that had a 2 page spread on The Rose Ensemble and another 2 pages about Minnesota - talk about educating your audience!

As usual, we are being so well received in Europe.

A medieval town in the Burgundy region of France.  Wow - went for a lovely walk this morning after a breakfast of coffee and baguettes.  I found out on my walk that Autun has probably the longest and best preserved walls in the Roman West still in existence and was begun at the end of the 1st century BC. Plaques are placed in significant historical areas of the town in both French and English languages and give some great details.  As you walk through the city, there are many pieces of Roman walls and structures that have been preserved and built around.

I continued to wander up the narrow winding streets is the magnificent Cathedral de St. Lazare built in the middle ages.  Medieval buildings line the cobbled roads and baskets of flowers hang from the windows.  it’s really very beautiful.  We had our first rehearsal in this grand space for our performance this evening.

Speaking of this evening, all of the invited choirs will first perform on the steps of City Hall and sing 2 pieces together to open this 30 year old festival.  We all met this morning and went over the songs together.  Rehearsal was conducted in French, but our conductor spoke slowly enough that we could pretty much figure out what was being said.  After we sing on the steps there will be a procession to the Cathedral with 3 stops on the way where each of the choirs will sing 1-2 National selections.  Rose will perform our 2 from City Hall and then we will go directly to the Cathedral to get ready for our concert tonight.  Unlike Italy, we are the only group presenting tonight’s show.  We have a nice Sacred program planned - about 40 minutes in length, and if we’re lucky, things should get underway at about 9:30pm as planned.

Walking back from lunch we saw a great poster with Jordan Framek as director (had to take a photo of this with Jordan) and I saw  a car that had been papered with an announcement for tonight’s show - I really hope we draw a large crowd on the Festival opening.

Internet is not readily available where I am staying, so today I purchased a wi-fi card so I can upload my blogs as I am able.

Thank you for reading and staying in touch!  As always, I appreciated your comments and look forward to your emails.

Lisa

The Rose Ensemble arrived safe and without issue at Charles DeGaulle Airport this morning.  After retrieving our luggage, we met our guide, Dominique, for the first Festival in Autun.  Wearily, we boarded our bus and headed south and east for the 5 hour journey.

I love France.  The countryside is so lovely - quaint villages dotting the hillsides with farms and white cows.  I can already taste the cheese and the bread.  If we hang out the window enough, we can see the Cathedral.  I love this photo of Ginna:

More to come!  Please send your comments - I love to hear from you!

Lisa

It seems that I just got back from Legnano, Italy and here I am, preparing for another tour this time to France. The first festival that I will be performing in with The Rose Ensemble will be The Musique en Morvan 2008: Festival de l’Oratorio in Autun, France.

We are one of six choirs invited to participate in this Festival and once again, the only United States ensemble represented.  I remember when I met the organizer of this event back in November.  It was right after we had given our presentation for the sacred portion of the Tolosa competition.  He was completely enamored with our group and said that we must come to France in the summer for his Festival.   We are honored.

Our first concert will be in the lovely Cathedrale St. Lazare, in Autun a city in the Burgundy Region of France.  I have to admit I can’t wait to see this place, and even more sing there.  I came across this fantastic site while trying to research it:  more on Cathedrale St. Lazare in Autun

The Cathedral was built between 1120 and 1146, the intention being to have a great church (it was not then the cathedral, which was next door and smaller) that would house the relics of St Lazarus (brother of Mary Magdalene) which the town had obtained in the late 900s. This would, the idea went, become a focal point for pilgrims that would generate the same sort of cash as was washing around neighboring Vézelay where Lazarus’s sister was (claimed to be).

Our 2nd Festival on this tour will be “Festival des Choeurs lauréats” July 28th-July 31st in Vaison la Romaine, Provence Region.  Here guest artists from the six grand European choral competitions from the past year will perform in concert and The Rose Ensemble will represent the US again as the first place winner of the Tolosa Spain competition in Sacred Choral Music.

Hopefully I will have some Internet access on this trip.   In the meanwhile, I have posted what shows I know of at this point on my Show Schedule page.  More to follow!

I would love to read your comments on this post.  Please feel free to contribute!