Barn Singing Festival in Thune.

 Not us singing, but this is how we look.

Last Saturday evening, 15th June, (this blog is getting behind with the news) we sang, together with nine others choirs, in a singing festival in a barn in Thune, a little village outside BS.    The choirs were all members of the "Lower Saxony Choir Group," who have banded together to sing,  usually in barns or other interesting establishments.  Above you can see a ladies choir from Wenden, who are dressed in smart red jackets, just like those our choir wears.   This is how we must appear to the audience.   

We sang four songs, in German, Croatian, Latin and a further German song, but with an English refrain.   Our practise the previous Thursday evening had not been very good, but as usually happens, we all rose to the occasion on the night, and sang really well.

 The Thune men's choir were hosts for the evening.

The above photo shows the barn interior, with an orange curtained off area where beer and nice things to eat were being sold.    I drank water, (I can't concentrate on the music if I drink beer) and I avoided the delicious snacks for sale.   The evening had started with a rain storm, but later the sun reappeared, and lit up the orange curtaining into cloth of gold.   We all had a good time, and  this Thursday we will start rehearsing again in readiness for another concert later in the summer.

This interesting looking Thune band arrived to play in the second half of the evening.

The various choirs sang in the first half of the evening, and for the second half, a traditional German band arrived to play traditional music.   I would like to have stayed and listened to the band, but I was with friends in their car, so had to leave.

We make a quick dash in the rain into the barn.

We had a quick rehearsal in a bicycle shed before the concert, where we took cover from a heavy shower. The photo above shows us running back towards the barn, with umbrellas held high!  The weather has been so very good of late, and we were all a little peeved that it rained on our parade!

The beer and food stalls to refresh the singers and audience.

The big barn where we sang is in the background, with some newly built houses to the right.  A blue Wolter's beer stall stands to the right, and the mobile burger and currywurst stall stands left.  Ahh, I missed a currywurst that evening, what a shame.   The red jacketed lady standing in the centre of the photo, is one of our singers.