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Jul 1, 2010 - Concert in Tallinn at St. Kaarli Church

Our day began with a 3-hour bus/walking tour of Tallinn. The hour-long bus ride gave us a perspective of the Old Town area, as well as of outlying sights. One of these, and the first stop we made, was Tallinn's Song Festival Grounds (pictured at the right). This facility (built in 1959-60) is simply amazing: the structure you see accommodates up to 30,000 singers, and the grounds (which, as you can imagine, are designed for excellent acoustics) can hold 100,000 people. This is the venue for the Estonian Song Festival, which is held once every 5 years (most recently in 2009), and this facility was the site of a gathering in 1989, a key part of the “Singing Revolution,” that led to the independence of, not only Estonia, but the other Baltic countries, as well.

The more hearty among us took up the challenge presented by this place and ran down the grassy expanse to the “stage.” After climbing the cement benches to the top, we sang “Ride the Chariot.” Those who stayed at the top of the “bowl” where we entered said that they could hear us very well. And a grounds-keeper must have been impressed because, as we were leaving, he approached some of us and offered to open the tower at the right of the picture so that we could get to the top to enjoy its view.

After seeing more of Tallinn's beautiful sights by bus, we began our walking tour of both the high and low parts of Old Town. One of our first stops was the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Tourists were pouring in and out of this building, and as yesterday, we were warned about taking pictures and men wearing hats. There was even some discussion whether the women's heads should be covered. There was, however, no thought of our singing inside, as we did yesterday. Good thing, because a few minutes after our entry we heard singing and saw two priests entering for a ceremony. It turned out that they were holding a funeral (with the deceased lying on a platform), right in front of the tourists.

The rest of Tallinn's Old Town was full of picturesque buildings and other interesting sites and shops, as were the other Old Towns that we have visited on this trip. If anything, it was more crowded than the others, but not less, nor more, charming.

At the conclusion of the tour, most of us stayed for lunch and shopping. Others returned to the hotel to prepare for the events of the evening. These began with a bus ride to Kaarli Church, “Tallinn's grandest nineteenth century church.” Though it may be “grandest” in some sense, it was sparsely decorated. Still, it seemed huge to us, able to accommodate 1500. And we were worried that the church's acoustics would muddy the words and music of our repertoire, as we had experienced to at Riga Dom earlier in the week.

The other chorus on the program was the Estonian Academy of Sciences Male Choir (www.etam.ee). They were 33 singers, and we were increasingly impressed as we listened to them rehearse. We were also impressed with the audience: people started coming in 45 minutes before the start of the concert — and they kept coming. By the time the concert started, there were probably 400 people in the audience.

The Estonian Academy of Sciences Male Choir (they probably are known in Estonia as “Etam” for short) went first, and did very well, including one song in English. After they had sung for about 30 minutes, we processed in, singing “Sing dem Herrn,” as usual. Our program was perhaps our longest to date, but it may have represented our best singing. It turned out that the reverberation from the stone walls was little or no problem at all, and our confidence grew with each song.

Each of our pieces (as well as we ourselves) had been introduced by the president of the Estonian choir, and after we sang our last piece (“Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel”), he began some closing words of thanks, when our director, Bruce McInnes, signaled that he had something to say. When he had the opportunity, he thanked the assembled group for their kindness and welcoming spirit, and said that we had a gift to offer “from our heart to yours.” Then he motioned for the members of “Etam” to join us on the risers.

Here was the plan. Estonians have a national song which, though not the national anthem, is much beloved, as “God Bless America” is to us. Mastersinger Ralph Nelson had been exposed to this song when participating in an Estonian choral festival many years ago. Anticipating the effect it might have on tonight's Estonian audience, Ralph created a TTBB arrangement, and Bruce distributed the song to our group several weeks before our departure. In rehearsals over the past week, we struggled with the pronunciation of the Estonian words, and now was the moment to sing it.

As soon as we started, the audience rose to their feet, and a few people seemed to be singing along with us. And they applauded when we had finished, but it seemed more polite than hearty. Perhaps we were expecting the ecstatic response we witnessed when we sang “Els Segadors” (the equivalent of a Catalan national anthem) to our audience in Barcelona in 2005. Maybe it’s the difference between passionate Mediterranean people and reserved northerners. By any measure, though, the concert was a success, and there were many cordial person-to-person exchanges between our men and audience members afterwards. Soon our busses arrived to take us back to our hotel, and we scattered in small groups for dinner.