Monday, June 30, 2008 by jozjozjoz.

Seeing as I still haven’t completed my post from the other day about Vox’s first concert in Mexico, I probably shouldn’t start writing about the last concert too much… I should leave it to someone else to write about.

But I’ll say just a few things.

Today was an amazing day.

After a day of sightseeing in San Miguel de Allende, Vox visited the Casa Hogar Don Bosco, a home for young & teenage girls who were in need of a home, but have now found one there. The girls immediately welcomed the ladies of Vox with open arms and shared some songs together. We didn’t have a lot of time together, but bonds were formed instantly… what an amazing experience for us to meet such lovely young ladies!

Shortly thereafter, Vox rushed from the home and back into the heart of San Miguel to take the stage at Teatro Angela Peralta, an opera house opened by the Mexican opera diva herself. The girls of Casa Hogar were sitting in the front rows! After intermission, the girls and Vox shared the stage as the girls performed a small set with Vox as the ultimate backup singers!

Then Vox wrapped up the concert with an amazing standing ovation with the entire audience calling for an encore!

Ok, for someone who wasn’t going to blog about the concert, I just did, but there is so much to say about this performance, I hope someone else will fill in all that I left out. And there were lots and lots of pictures taken today… will any of the Voxxies and friends please share?!?!?

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Sunday, June 29, 2008 by toni.

yeah, we sang today, and also we were rained on. not at the same time though.

awesome concert in tepotzolán. the church was painted all in real gold and it was so rococo it was rocococococo cuckoo. if you don’t believe me check out the picture from the previous post. anyway, the concert went really really well and i can’t explain how transformational singing for these audiences is. i love how in both of our concerts, people came in families. children of all ages in the audience. often in the states i don’t feel like children are welcome at ‘classical’ concerts. well these kids are remarkably well-behaved. also, i’m sure allie won’t blog this but she sang her lullaby solo and two abuelas got all teary-eyed. she was great!

on to the rain. we drove for a few hours to get to san miguel de allende. the drive was beautiful, alternating between plains and mountains. lots of green and lots of rain. we are in san miguel now in a hotel with enough room to run around. so, several of us did just that! pouring rain on us as we did cartwheels, explored the property, bothered our vox neighbors, and in general had a great time. i love playing in the rain and thank you to jeni, carly, evi and allie for playing along!

tomorrow is a busy busy day so i’m off to get stuff ready for our last concert tomorrow!

p.s. joz is being bossy and threatened to edit my post if i didn’t say that on the bus we had a special screening of Frida. it was so cool to see the palácio nacionál, teotihuacán (they even climbed the same pyramid we did!) and other places in mexico city.

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Sunday, June 29, 2008 by allie.

joz took some pics during our performance today at tepotzotlan. fabulous concert. posting a picture before we go to dinner…

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Sunday, June 29, 2008 by jozjozjoz.

Allie keeps poking me and bumping into me right now and is making it hard for me to type, so apologies in advance for anything funky that I might type.

This morning we are sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Mexico City, all checked out and waiting for our bus. But that’s another story.

Last night, the Voxxies sounded absolutely amazing in their first concert in Mexico! But for us lucky audience members, we got two concerts in one! Vox Femina’s first performance of their first international tour was a joint concert with Coro Karites, Mexico’s only women’s chorus. The concert venue was the Museo Antiguo Palacio del Arzobispado, a preserved 16th-century home which been transformed into a museum that traces the development of Mexican art from pre-Columbian times to modern day. What a treat to see and hear Vox perform in such beautiful and historic venue!

Kárites, a chorus of six women led by Gabriela Franco, took the stage first. Their program consisted of:

>Yoik; Canto de Laponia
Non nobis domine; William Byrd (1543-1622)
Akai hana, shirio hana; Mie Nakabayashi (arranged by Nachiko Terashima)
Txeru; Norberto Alamadoz (1893-1970)
Festive alleluya; Lyn Williams (1952)
Si de noche vez que brillan; Cancion venezolana S.XIX
La estrella Azul; Carlos Oscar “Peteco Carabajal” (1956) (arranged by Eduardo Ferraudi)
Seberianita; Cancion Purepecha
Cancion con Todos; Cesar Isella (1938) (arranged by Ruben Caceres)

…

The women of Kárites were so welcoming and dedicated the final two songs of the concert to the women of Vox.

Vox’s set began with:

Ave generosa; Hildegard von Bingen
Nigra Sum; Pablo Casals
Esto les Digo; Kinley Lange
Ave Maria; David McIntyre
I Thank You God; Gwyneth Walker

It was absolutely stunning to hear Vox in this wonderful space… when they finished Ave Maria, the audience audibly sighed at the beauty of this piece.

Vox commissioned Roger Bourland to set poetry by Francisco X. Alarcon to music a few years ago; the next set was a selection from the Alarcon Madrigals.

In a Neighborhood in LA
Both Page and Pen
Body in Flames
Lamentario
Face and Heart
Guardian Angel

(To be continued… bus is here!)

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Saturday, June 28, 2008 by allie.

our first performance is tonight. most of the choir went on a walking tour of the city this morning (i had to do my hair so there was no walking for me) and we’re meeting in about an hour to go to the venue and rehearse. one thing about staying in the city center, we’re definitely in the thick of things. so thick that we are unable to take our tourbus to our performance space because of a protest taking place today. what’s the protest about, you ask? gay rights. it’s also pride weekend here, so there are apparently lots of things pride related going on. this is the 30th year that there has been a pride march in mexico city. yahoo mexico has much coverage of pride on its front page.

time to grab some lunch before we go!

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Friday, June 27, 2008 by allie.

after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we boarded the bus and started out of the city. joz wrote all about it on her blog, and i’m really too tired to repost it here, so go there, read about it, and then look at our pretty pictures!

many of the voxxies trekked up the pyramid of the sun. i, being of very out of shape body, opted to watch the climb from this vantage point:

more pics later…

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Friday, June 27, 2008 by allie.

so i’ve been looking through peoples’ pictures, and so far, i’ve none of the group checking into the airport at 5am on thursday. isn’t that strange? or maybe everyone has a better sense of self preservation than i thought…? anyway, a few pictures of our first day in mexico.

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Friday, June 27, 2008 by allie.

things we´ll post about when we get internet access for a longer duration:

basilica de guadalupe
lunch: pictures of us in some great headwear
our trek to the pyramids
the traffic in mexico city on a friday afternoon

and what may mess up our schedules greatly saturday afternoon (our first concert is saturday night…)

pictures. lots and lots of pictures…

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Friday, June 27, 2008 by lauren.

by Dr. Iris Levine

We arrived safely and all is good. The hotel is fantastic and right in the center of the Historic area of Mexico City. Toured some of the sights including the National Palace, the Cathedral and braved one set of thunderstorms already. The lowering of the flag ceremony was fantastic. Complete with military police and out of tune band. Sweet! Great food - company- and ready to try the tequila!. More later….

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Friday, June 27, 2008 by lauren.

more later

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