On Hosting a choir.
The Chamber Singers went on many tours between 1987 and 2009. Singing 100 concerts all over North America and another hundred concerts in 40 countries around the world, we were hosted and billeted at many of these Venues by local sponsors. The hosting “style’ ranged from the lavish treatments, particularly in southeast asia to the somewhat sparse ones elsewhere.
We all loved being treated generously, not just because we enjoyed being pampered but because we had put in a lot of work to perform “tour quality” music on these trips and in the case of the overseas tours had spent a fair amount of money toward our air transpiration to get there.
Our hosts’ attitudes ranged from strong appreciation for our efforts to taking our appearances for granted. Sadly, the latter attitude was more apparent in North America than elsewhere in the world.
Taken to the extreme, we experienced a number of “no shows” over the years, (defined as zero audience members) to my memory, on 5 occasions (out of 100 concerts not such a bad average). As for the singers, they took it with some humour (a concert for ourselves) or some as a sort of “badge of honour”.
No Shows
February, 1978 – Prince George, BC – a College administrator couldn’t find enough billets, so sent us a note the day of our arrival giving us a list of motels, but no reservations (and 0 billets).
December, 1982 – Portland, Oregon (a joint concert tour with University of California Chamber Choir “Perfect Fifth”) Arriving at First Presbyterian Church, nobody knew anything about a concert. Our audience was the bus driver
May 1997 – Claremont, South Africa – the organist, who was supposed to organize the event, was “on holiday”.
May 2000. Lompoc, California – Parks Department organizer “couldn’t be bothered” – told us by phone the day of our arrival
May, 2002 – Hong Kong Cathedral – the only person present some sort of “church lady” who moved plants noisilyvaround during our singing. I suffered some abuse from sopranos, who don’t think I should have yelled at the Church lady – My bad!
Other “interesting” host “problems:
May, 1991 – Kiev – This had a happy ending. We arrived at the Hotel Mir in Kiev (google it) and “sight-saw” for three days without any schedule. This is a dangerous “state” for a bunch of singers from Canada which concluded with a lavish party to which we had invited a local klezmer band we had encountered earlier on the streets of Kiev. At breakfast on the fourth day, we were told to get into our concert dress because there was to be a concert that afternoon at the renowned Kiev Conservatory. We arrived to see a lineup all the way around the building! It turns out the concert, which we shared with two other choirs, had been planned for weeks in support of the children of Kiev who had been suffering the effects of Chernobyl.
May, 1995 – Sidney, Australia – First Methodist Church messed up on the arrangements resulting in an audience of 4. The Tour company gave us a handsome rebate on this one.
May, 2000 – ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte) Havana had agreed to billet us on the last night of our Cuba tour. On arrival, no arrangements had been made. Students, however, took us under their wing and provided some “unusual” sleeping places. That being said, ISA provided a wonderful concert and reception for us earlier in the week. Things went even further downhill as 7 taxis arrived 4am to transport us to the airport. The following sequence of events contributed substantially to my upcoming hair-loss: We had a disagreement with the cab drivers. The first charged charged my cab $x and the remaining 6 wanted double that EACH! I instructed the singers so pay the same amount we had paid. Then, one cab left with Dan’s suitcase (and passport) in the trunk. I told the students to surround one of the cabs (as a hostage for Dan’s suitcase/passport). After an hour and a half of nailbiting and calls to the Canadian Embassy (which were never answered), the errant cab driver returned with Dan’s property. This was 5 minutes before the flight’s boarding gates closed. The customs officer (undoubtedly a relative of the cab driver) then proceeded to ask Dan every possible question in his manual and 15 minutes later, Dan and I ran exhausted on to the soon to depart plane.
March, 2007 – Voronezh, Russia – Actually this was a promised concert at the University of Voronezh. The University waited until March for Russian government approval and not receiving it, we had to cancel or lose a transportation deposit. I have a feeling we were being shaken down for a “donation”. We had to go sing in Kiev instead (Darn!).
May 2007 – Odessa Conservatory – The administrator from the Odessa Conservatory was on holiday and had “dropped the ball” Consequently no one knew anything about a concert. When contacted, the choir conductor jumped into action and got his whole choir out for a concert three days later. This included flowers and bottles of champagne on the stage for us. In these times, we so wish there was some way we could help these wonderful singers who currently suffer so much in this awful war!
May, 2007 – Moscow – the sponsor, the Musical Instrument Museum of Moscow, charged us a lot of money but posted only one poster (and that one was in English)??? Consequently, there were a half dozen people in the audience (mostly relatives of Johnny Popoff). I refused to pay the manager and left, but paid a presonal price by having to look over my shoulder for KGB until our plane took off from Moscow airport.