Upon arrival in Antigonish, we had an hour to get ourselves ready to go to St Francis Xavier Chapel at the University, commonly known here as StFX. It is a beautifully graceful University and Chapel, and we quickly learned that the Chapel is accoustically marvellous, where our singing was mellow and filled the chapel without echoing or needing to set up our sound equipment.
Natalie tests the Chorus and accoustics as we warm up
Once again, we sang to an audience that greeted us with enthusiasm and appreciation, and we could see that, after opening with a few down-east songs, we had fully captured their attention. We are always pleased to see people ooh-ing and nodding in eagerness when Carlo introduces a song, and then seeing them singing along with us! Yet when we sang ‘Precious Lord’ a cappela, you could have heard a pin drop.
At the end, the extensive standing ovation lasted a long time, only to be followed by a second one after our encore, ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.
And of course there were also cheers when Carlo told the audience that our Director, Natalie, is a StFX graduate! What they don’t know is that returning here to perform in the Chapel at her ‘home school’ has been Natalie’s dream for many years, and as such it was a significantly great day for her!
Being an unseasonably warm day, most of us had a steam bath inside our uniforms during the show, so instead of loading them back into the truck, Bob had us take them to our rooms to air them out. We can only imagine what the truck would have been like today if 30 damp uniforms had been locked in there!
A beautiful Chapel, and a beautiful day for Natalie!
Thanks to Paul Wallace for the photo.
Proceeds from this concert will go to St Martha’s Regional Hospital.
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