Juli and I met for breakfast at 8:15, then walked to Avery Fisher Hall to hear Vanguard practice. In an attempt to travel lightly, I left my backstage pass in my choir folder. I apologized and went to get my ID, but since I was with others who did have their passes, the guard just let me in. A young gal from DCINY took us from backstage to the theatre, we went up and down a series of steps, I’m glad we have someone to guide us.
The theatre looks dated (1960’s) and is in the style of an opera house, with a large main floor and then rings of seats around the wall. The acoustics are great and the choir sounds wonderful. We get to listen to them sing about 4 songs, then the DCINY staff leads us backstage to the green room. After a while, we line up to process on to the stage. I am so excited I can hardly stand it, and this is only the rehearsal. We ran through the mass once, then went over a couple of numbers a second time and after instructions were released to go.
A couple of interesting tidbits, James brought Elizabeth Johnson, the Jung Trio, one of the student cellists and Sorah - another professional, to play with the orchestra, Elizabeth was to be the concertmistress. Apparently, the union rules state that for Elizabeth to have that role, we would have needed to provide more than half the orchestra. James was not happy about that, particularly since he had rehearsed so much with the 6 that he brought with us to provide leadership.
The musicians here are very snooty and think that ours are inferior because they are from California. Jung-A Lee has a little micro organ to play and one of the string players told her that she needed to set a certain stop, she let him know the organ doesn’t have that stop. Another told her that the A she played for them to tune off of was too soft. She set a specific stop for that tuning, so it would be louder, but informed him later that she would not set that for the performance, since it was in the wrong octave. The ironic thing is, Elizabeth has her masters in violin performance from Peabody, the two younger Jung sisters and Sorah have their masters from Yale, Jennie has her Doctorate from Juilliard and Jung-A has her Doctorate from a prominent east coast school.
We are all supposed to carry black folders, I left mine on the seat of my car back in California. They have extras and the girl that is in charge of those gave me hers during rehearsal, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it right before the performance, very nice of her. I also volunteered to carry in the folders of two of the Vanguard girls, so this means that I will tote around 3 folders, with music, all day long.
After rehearsal, Juli, Ashley, Sarah and I went to the Soul Bread cafe for lunch. We started walking to the park and ran into Michael, Andre, Adam and Greg and walked as far as the park with them. From there Juli and I went to the Plaza for a cup of tea/coffee and desert. While we were there, Michael and his buddies came walking through and Adam took some pictures of Julie and I. Our waiter is very attentive and takes another picture of us, so we took a picture of him. He got very excited and gave me his e-mail address so I can send it to him.
From the Plaza, we set off for St. John the Divine Cathedral. We took the orange line, which lets us off at the top of the park, in Harlem. After walking about a block or so, I had us turn around and go back to the subway. I later learned from Jennie, we should have taken the red line. We got back on the train up to the Cloisters.
The Cloisters is a recreation of a monastery, built using bricks and capitals from ancient monasteries and churches. It has art and is part of the Metropolitan. The gardens contain plants that would have been found in a monastery. From the subway station, one walks through a lovely, peaceful park that runs along the Hudson. It is beautiful and peaceful. 
We returned to the hotel about 5:30 to get ready for the concert. At 6:15, we met in the lobby, talked to Jung-A, then walked to Lincoln center. At 7:20, a large part of the St. Andrews choir met to take a picture for the local Newport Beach newspaper, the Daily Pilot. After taking pictures, Juli and I went to get dinner at Barnes and Noble’s Starbucks cafe.The first half of the concert was the International Honors Wind Ensemble. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing them, because I thought it would be a bunch of flutes, and I don’t really like flutes. I went in after their first number, only to find out, it has t a bunch of brass as well, I’m very happy. I’m surprised how many people there are in the hall, most of the orchestra is filled, as well as the first ring of seats.
At intermission, the folks from DCINY came to take us backstage. Vanguard sings their program first, but about half way through, the other two choirs and the St. Andrews choir lined up and went backstage. When Vanguard finished their program, they stayed on stage and we filled in around them.
There are about 600 - 700 people in the audience, many more than I expected. Everything went very well and the concert was over before I knew it. I was so happy and excited, I don’t think I stopped smiling the entire time I was on stage.
After the concert was over, we walked to Tavern on the Green and had a wonderful party. The restaurant was decorated beautifully and a buffet was set up on the patio. The food was good, the deserts even better; everyone was in high spirits. We stayed at the restaurant until 1am, then caught a cab back to the hotel. It took time to unwind, so I didn’t get to sleep until about 2am.
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