The weather, at least during our time in Montreal has been anything other than we expected.  It is hot and humid resembling a summer in Florida rather than my perception of Canadian weather.  This is a land of extremes with quite a bit of heat and humidity in summer and an ice age during their 5-6 month winter.  We performed a concert at the Church of Saint- Rose in Laval, a large suburb of Montreal, which was more like singing in a sauna than a church.  The weather in Quebec has been much better.

We have performed four formal concerts with one more scheduled tomorrow.  The crowds in Montreal were decent, particularly at Saint-Rose, but our one performance in Quebec was unpublicized and attended only by our entourage and a few devout worshipers waiting for mass at Saint-Anne’s Basilica.  We have one more formal concert tomorrow at Notre Dame des Victores.  (No, it’s got nothing to do with Notre Dame football.)    The crowd should be pretty good as there is a lot of tourist traffic.

In addition to formal concerts, Gary has led us in several impromptu concerts at several churches and other locations we visit.  These Guerrilla concerts, a Vocal Arts tradition, provide many of the tours highlights and often surprise tourist and worshippers alike.

We also manage to sing at almost every meal except breakfast.  I’ve come to believe that “tour” in French means going from meal to meal.  Actually, I believe the tour companies live in fear that someone will complain that they are not well-fed so they start talking about the next meal before the last is finished.   In fact, I already know exactly what I will be eating for dinner tomorrow.

I can’t close without saying what a great group this is to travel with.  Our tour guide told my wife “these are very happy people.”  (Well she has a strong accent so if came out “appy people.”)  We enjoy each others’ company and humor.  It is remarkable that we all seem to go with the flow even when, as is inevitable in these situations, the flow oozes, lurches, twists and turns.    (Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Kathy Wolff for her role in organizing the tour.   It is a vital though thankless job and we are very fortunate that she was willing and very able.)

The Vocal Arts are having a fabulous time so far. Some of it has been pretty surreal. We watched a movie in a cathedral that was projected onto sheets laid out like ship sails. It gave the history of Montreal, beginning with a Star Wars title regression with large letters drifting back into time until we saw Christ die on the cross. Then, ‘whoooosh’ we were brought back to the present. The narrator was a ghost of a man who helped with the decision to send people to Canada. He had the same voice as the ghost in the haunted mansion at Disneyland, and since his English words from our earphones did not match up with his French mouth movements, it seemed a bit like watching a Monty Python skit. The he died. The actor was sitting with his journal on his lap and oh so slo.o.o.oly his head dropped to his chest and then   -  he was dead. By this time most of us were stiffling giggles until we all caught the giggle fever and could not control ourselves any more. I felt as though I were back in my teens in Mr Ebersal’s geography class, being sent down the hall because I couldn’t contain my laughter.  We pretty much got the stink eye from the locals as we filed out at the end. I think some people purposely stayed in their seats just to give us the major stink eye so we would know that we ruined it for them. But what the heck, it was hysterical.

The other very surreal moment was when we sang at the Mondial choral festival on a huge outdoor stage. It was like the Live Oak festival on steroids. The outdoor stage was staggeringly large. There was a section of seats in front of us where no one was allowed to sit until later so our audience was sitting on the grass about 150 feet away with coolers filled with who knows what – if you know what I mean – and I think you do. There was a carnival behind the audience ala Mid-State Fair. While we were singing, the different bands of lights around the stage went on and off with a colored light show. Since they were coming from different points above, my 116 stringed instrument had shadows that moved with the changing lights and I think I went into REM sleep mode watching the strings move and change colors. As I stood up to rejoin the choir, Gary was framed by the ferris wheel going round and round, so even though he was directing us with his hands and arm motions, the little chairs going round and round were more than a bit distracting. He had a moving halo framing his head. Who knows what we sounded like. We’ve never sung before with the smell of fried food and cotton candy in our nostrils every time we took a breath. Now I know why Everyone who performs at the Mid-State Fair only does it once. Of course at the Paso Fair the stadium also sports a bit of a bovine odor, but that is another story.

First:  rehearsal.   File under “we’d rather be heard than seen”.  So we don’t really do amplification but at this venue there was no choice.  People in the first 50 rows really couldn’t hear us, but since there

were only 15 people there it didn’t much matter.  Back beyond the beer and poutine stands into ferris wheel range, the sound was LOUD and clear

Then onstage for the performance:  Sandwiched between a kid’s choir and a choral group from China we reaffirm our hunch that all stages are not created equal.

VAE - sharing the stage for grand finale with choir from Montreal and chamber singers from Toronto

We check into our rooms and meet in the hotel restaurant for what Danielle calls “pasta” (rhymes with “canasta”.)  After dinner our first choir “moment” comes when the wait staff asks us to “sing something” – and we stand up from the tables-garlic breath and all -  and launch into Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus.  Its interweaving phrases and soaring themes wow the staff and soothe our souls…yes, this is why we are here.

Pat Harris