The Harmonie Festival is held every six years in Lindenholzhausen, Germany, and in 2005 they invited the Cardinal Singers to participate for the first time, offering them hosting in the nearby small town of Staudt. Cardinal competed and did very well, and has been back to every Harmonie Festival since - all two of them, first in 2011, then again this year, in 2017.
I am setting a record I will likely never break for number of locations in a single post, but it made sense for the format of the this trip to do it this way. We stayed for a week in Staudt, which is why it gets first billing, and drove into Lindenholzhausen for the festival days, but we also had some extra time and opportunities for day trips to other places. The posts from our Europe tour will be a bit lopsided due to this, since the second half of the trip will be shorter one- or two-city stops in very discrete fashion. The main event, and most of our performing, took place during the first week, then the second receded into a very pleasant denouement.
A handful of Cardinals flew into Frankfurt a day early for reasons, but most of the group, myself included, flew in Monday-Tuesday, getting to Frankfurt early morning and leaving soon after for Staudt. About an hour in, we began to see idyllic little houses and classic Euro-streets. People on the bus started oohing and aahing and the bus driver playfully imitated us, saying "awww so cuuuute!" in a heavy German accent.
And thus began our long affair with sparkling water. I'd forgotten about that.
After eating, the ringleaders of our hosting, Holger and Volker, welcomed us and began the process of pairing us with our host families. A few, including my own, were not there as they had had some prior obligation, so I (as well as Ethan and Chris, my roommates for this trip) joined with one of the neighbors of our family to be taken to our home:
This house was beautiful, with a kind of modern design:
This was the downstairs room, where Chris and I slept:
Once we settled in and showered, our host mother returned home and we got to meet her. This is Elie:
She fed us and gave us water - still water, you know, like humans drink - and then we went on an impromptu tour of the village. On the way, we kept seeing other people settling in with their host families and yelling out to them to come join us, which they did, before proceeding to the next house to repeat the process, and pretty soon we had about half of Cardinal and their host families on a march through Staudt.
We kept this going until we reached the town center, then the group dispersed.
Following this, my housemates and I followed our mother to the daycare where her two actual kids were waiting to be picked up. We then walked back to the house - basically everything in Staudt was within walking distance.
For the rest of the afternoon we sat around the house, trying not to fall asleep and thereby discombobulate our sleep schedules, precarious as they were already. There was talk of a big barbecue that evening, but despite this, Elie fed us again toward the early evening, just before a brief Cardinal rehearsal back at the town hall to get us into the competition mindset.
There was also talk of a visit to the town Biergarten that night, but we found out it was still closed for the season until the following weekend - our last day or two before departing for points east.
Not that beer was in short supply. After the rehearsal, we walked over to another host family's house, to their backyard, where the barbecue was already in full swing:
This barbecue only included about half the singers. The other half were at a barbecue of their own on the other side of town - just a result of how we were distributed in our host houses.
After the barbecue, we returned to our own house and had another beer or two with Elie and Christian, our host father, now at last home from work. We talked and got to know each other as dusk turned to night slowly around us, ending the first very long day in Germany.
The next day was a sightseeing day, as the competition didn't start until Thursday (or at least, the first category we signed up for wasn't). The coalition of host families put together the day's itinerary, and we headed off in our bus bright and early that morning. On the way to our first stop, we rode through Montabaur, the next town over, which was slightly more upscale (read: had a shopping district and a train station), and there seemed to exist a friendly rivalry, giving many of us a Pawnee/Eagleton vibe.
The first destination was Lorelei, a cliff overlook onto a river and winding landscape below. Part of the area was under construction, even though it didn't obstruct the main view; nevertheless, our hosts apologized profusely for this absolute failure of an outing. I suspect if they hadn't said anything none of us would have known anything was amiss.
Next, we rode to a castle. En route, we passed through many picturesque small towns, each with its own castle. This was amazing to many of us, who are used to American small towns which at best each have their own McDonald's.
The castle we went to was called Marksburg, where we were given a tour by Hipster Christoph Waltz:
Shots from the tour:
Also, Dr. Hatteberg put on this helmet:
Next, we bussed to the town of Koblenz, where the Rhine and Mosel rivers meet, a spot the townsfolk decided to mark with a massive statue:
Predictably, we stood and sang two or three pieces from our rep at the base of the statue. While it is kinda neat to have this "party trick" we can break out anytime a quorum of us are together, I think it needs to be used sparingly, not the least of which because, this time at least, we were interrupting street performers trying to earn some spare change in an upturned hat.
After the show, we were free to explore Koblenz for a couple hours, which was great, since the town - which I'd never heard of before that day - was really beautiful, and large enough to make use of that time.
Again: idyllic
With the town sufficiently explored, we moved onto the last stop of the day: what else, but a biergarten. Now, it should be noted, this biergarten (Maximiliens) is not the one in the center of Staudt. That one would have to wait until our final night.
I tried all three varieties they had. This must be one of those Europe vs America differences; this place was content to offer three kinds of beer plus one seasonal (which they were out of), while even the small-time American breweries have like a dozen. Must have something to do with those German purity laws.
The next morning I awoke to my host dad requesting my tux shirt for him to iron; good thing, too, as it was egregiously wrinkled form the flight. Then around 11:00 AM, it was time to depart for festival day #1.
That day there were two items on our agenda: singing in the folk song competition, and singing in the opening concert. The way the festival worked was, there were categories you could sign up to compete in, do a 12-or-so-minute set, and then be ranked with the other competitors, but there were also concerts each night not a part of the competition that certain groups were invited to be a part of. We were competing in folk songs, sacred works, and general mixed choir, but we also had three non-competition concerts, the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the sacred concert Saturday night.
Anyway, we warmed up, then had a chance to hit the food tent for lunch before our 3pm competition set.
They also had us sing by the big globe out front, I don't know why. One of the organizers of the festival was a huge fan of us, so he constantly had us do extra pieces or performances or things like that.
Then we competed in the main stage tent, which I think was called Tent A:
Once that was over and we'd changed out of our concert black, the men of Cardinal had a rehearsal with the local men's choir who were also performing at the opening concert that night. We sight read like 8 pieces over the course of 1.5 hours, and that was all the rehearsal we got before joining them for the concert. Felt a little rushed. But hey, cross-cultural bonding and all that.
After the rehearsal, we rejoined with the women in the food tent to hear the results of our set. The verdict: 2nd place. Not bad, but after hearing the legends of those 2005 Cardinals who got the first perfect score in Harmonie Festival history, it was a little deflating. Then, it was back into concert black for the evening's show, first with the combined men's choirs, then with just Cardinal, who were toward the end.
After the concert, we returned to the food tent for a few more beers, which led to some makeshift bar singing since, y'know, we had a choir and a bunch of memorized rep to utilize. Again: it's a nice party trick.
Got on the bus for Staudt at about 11:00pm, so it was pretty late getting back home. Ethan, Chris, and I were greeted by a bucket with a sign in it that read, "please deposit your white shirts for washing". Aww, you guys.
The next day, Friday, was a free morning, so some sleeping in was in order. At my late breakfast, our host parents let us know that Monday, our last free day, they would both have work, and asked what we'd be interested in doing. I asked about the possibility of going to Cologne, 30 minutes away by train, and Christian said he'd look into the train schedule and get back to me.
Once Ethan and Chris were up and ready to go, our host father offered to drive us to Limburg, a town about 20 minutes away with a spectacular cathedral up on a hill. He showed off his fancy car to us on the drive there - one gadget was a small wheel near the gear shift where he could use his finger to scratch out the letters spelling our destination and have the GPS receive it and translate it into directions there. Pretty neat! He also flipped a switch and then took his hands off the wheel, which then began steering itself, responding to the lane lines in the road. It had its limits - at too high speeds and too sharp a turn, it couldn't respond fast enough, but STILL.
Parked near the train station in Limburg and headed into the town. When the first view of the town was this open air market, I knew it was gonna be a good day:
Quintessentially European architecture and winding streets:
We emerged from our stroll by the river:
Which led us to this mill:
Next to this recreation area:
And up on the hill, we could see the cathedral:
The church was not as sprawling as some of the cathedrals I would later see on this trip, but it was beautiful, as these European churches tend to be:
Also, there was another choir there, singing something I didn't understand:
Eventually, we exited the church and ambled back out into Limburg:
And saw yet another choir, this one giving what seemed to be a real, organized performance:
There must have been a component of Harmonie Festival taking place in Limburg, but I never quite knew just what that was.
We then waited by this fountain for a friend of Ethan's who was going to ride back with us to Staudt and spend the next couple of days shadowing Cardinal as we finished up competing at the festival:
When we returned to Staudt, it was time to begin the hike to the big event of the day: the barbecue, this time with everyone in Cardinal. They were big on barbecues in Staudt. We met at the town center and began our march:
And arrived at this open shelter/activity field:
to find a convenience-store grade cooler filled with beer as well as foodstuffs from our host families, including a variety of meats to be grilled. And where would this grilling take place, you ask? Well:
On the communal grill and fire pit, of course. Where else?
The frivolity continued on the rest of the day, until around sunset, and consisted of eating, drinking, talking, playing, and of course, singing:
The barbecue day was one of those perfect days of my life. Over a week later, on the bus to Berlin, Dr. Hatteberg would ask us which day we'd want to relive if we could pick one day from the trip to stay in Groundhog Day-style, and this day was almost universally given as the answer. At dusk, my host family drove us home and I wandered to my bed, quite content.
Saturday, we returned back to the competition for our next set, which was the general Mixed Chorus round. Perplexingly, this category only had three competitors in it, despite being the most open in terms of repertoire. It may have been size related - there was a separate category for mixed chamber choirs, which we were too large to qualify for. But still!
The auditorium we competed in was not only hot, but had pretty bad acoustics - the sound had no ring to it and stopped almost as soon as it left the stage. Still, we made it work, and pulled off a first place for our troubles.
Blake got to collect our trophy.
That night was another non-competition concert, this one sacred-music themed, and held in the church, which was by far the best place acoustically to sing in the entire festival.
The other choirs on that concert were AMAZING. Some of the best I've ever heard by far. So much so that we were self-conscious to get up and perform our set when it was our time - not a typical feeling for the Cardinal Singers. Still, we did well enough that one of the festival organizers ran up to the stage after our last piece to beg for an encore, which we of course were happy to do.
Another late night getting back, and another morning call time for our last competition day on Sunday. This day would be the sacred music competition round, which is different form the sacred music concert....you can see why I sometimes forgot what we were even doing day-to-day.
This was the largest category by far, having something like 18 choirs competing. Our time slot was somewhere toward the end, but not quite last, giving us time to change and eat before settling in under the big tent to hear the results. Since they called the groups in ascending placement order, each new choir mentioned was more and more anxiety-inducing, especially as we got to the last 5 or so and still hadn't been called. Finally, third from the end, they read our scores. This meant we got third, right? Well, no, somehow. I wasn't writing down the results like people next to me, but I think what happened is that two groups tied for first, but Cardinal still received 2nd place. So it wasn't really second. Like, two groups did better than us. However, we did get a special award for best program, which really goes to Dr. Hatteberg because he's the one that picked the music.
Of course, that wasn't the end, as we were invited to perform on the closing concert as well...in fact, we were invited to close the closing concert, which is a big deal. We found out somehow that the other American choir there, Mannsfield, also knew Unclouded Day, one of the pieces in our rep, and someone somewhere hatched the idea of joining the two groups for the very last piece of that night's concert, so after dinner, we met up at the school to run through it.
The final concert was nice. We got to see basically the best of the best of the competition, including (I think) all the winning choirs, which included the Cuban group that beat us in folk songs three days earlier. At last, we went on and did our biggest numbers, including a few spirituals, and of course, Unclouded Day.
Hatteberg, at least in the past several years, often takes one or two works from that year's grad recitals to do with Cardinal on our summer tour(s). I consider it sort of an unofficial honor that he chose one of mine with Unclouded Day. It kept messing me up, though, because I learned it first as a conductor, rather than one voice part, so I'd accidentally come in with the sopranos sometimes in rehearsing it in the lead-up to this trip. Never in performance, though, I promise.
Headed home after this last, long competition day and got the word on going to Cologne the next morning - there was a train leaving at 9:02 AM which would allow Christian to drop me off at the station in Montabaur on his way in to work. Not only did he indeed end up doing that, but also walked in and helped me buy the right tickets and everything. What a swell guy.
So I made it to the train Monday morning with no issue and boarded right at 9:02, just as advertised. I made my first mistake quickly after this, though, sitting in first class rather than coach, which I found out when the ticket-checker came by. No problem, though. It was just one car over.
Got into Cologne and exited the station to be immediately greeted by the biggest thing I've ever seen.
and also Bethany!
Bethany was also travelling through Europe and by pure coincidence was in Cologne the only day I would have been able to get up there. So we decided to bump into one another.
Saw the Cathedral first, which was what everyone told me I HAD to see, and also the thing I very much wanted to see. Outside:
And in:
Next, we looked up what the top things to see in Cologne even were, and within short walking distance, we saw there was some building, so we decided to go to that. To get there, we had to cross one of those bridges with the love locks on them:
On the bridge, we struck up a conversation with another two Americans who told us there was a great observation deck right in the direction we were heading, so we made that our destination instead:
Our next planned destination was the chocolate museum, but first, we ate somewhere around this square:
Checking the time on my return train, we figured there wasn't quite enough time for the museum, and so got coffee instead, then walked back to the Cathedral and the train station to see me off.
I was very glad to take this side trip to Cologne. Traveling with a group like this, you don't get that sense of freedom or exploration as much since you're corralled and scheduled so much, and what Bethany was doing - making her way across Europe by herself, just to see it - is more my ideal, so it was nice to get a brief taste of it. I know, I know, first world problems. But still.
Made it back into Montabaur with no problem to find Elie circling the parking lot ready to pick me up. I was under the impression that I was going to have to walk back to Staudt, but it was not to be. A good thing, too, since it was getting pretty hot...more on that later.
After some food it was back into concert black for our big concert for the people of Staudt...which was held in Wirges, because that's where the auditorium was. This concert was not part of the festival at all, it was just our way of saying thanks to the host families we'd come to know over our week there. We did most everything that had been sung at the festival, plus a few more - my own On Goes the River included. It was by far the hottest I've ever been while performing; I had to wipe sweat after each piece, and for the second half - at Hatteberg's request, even - we went without tux jackets and with rolled-up sleeves, no doubt an amusing sight to our audience.
After the concert, and after a quick side trip at Elie's insistence to get some fries for us, we made our way to the town's Beirgarten, at last open just for us, and held one final party. It was more of a formality than I expected, with Holger and Volker making speeches and presenting us with individualized ceramic mugs to take home. I headed back maybe three in the morning; from what I've heard, that was early.
The next morning, we took a squinty family photo (Christian was the photographer, so unfortunately he's not in it):
We walked one last time to the town center to load the awaiting bus. And of course, we sang one big goodbye song - our traditional Irish Blessing - to the families of Staudt. After, Elie walked up to me.
"Do you sing that every time you leave somewhere?" she asked.
"Pretty much," I said.
She paused to quickly wipe her damp eye. "That is very mean!"
