Day 10: Salerno

After our brief respite in Rome, we made it to the south of Italy to a little town in the bay of Naples called Salerno. Our hotel was spacious and modern with very fast elevators and good breakfasts and we were able to go right across the street to the beach. Unfortunately, the beach was less than desirable in that it was full of garbage and Styrofoam. We nonetheless jumped out of our bus, changed into our shorts and hopped in. The water was very refreshing and was surprisingly deep. Going in about ten surface feet it dropped down to about eight feet in no time. I have a feeling that is a common feature of this coastline because it is very black sand and has, I think, a lot to do with the volcanos.




After our brief dip we got dressed into our tuxes and hopped on the busses into the center of town for another concert at the Chiesa Dell’Addolorata. We are part of a larger choral festival in Salerno but our concert today was a chance to give a large section of our repertoire to the board of people in charge of the festival.



Unfortunately, one of our officers forgot the programs and tour gifts on the bus so I had to go with our president back to the bottom of the hill to grab everything from the bus drivers who had already departed. We made it down the hill and got to the busses, but just as we were heading up we were met by a local parade and our progress was halted with no remedy other than to wait. Luckily we were only rehearsing during the time we spent to go get the programs, so we had a chance to sit back, relax, and make our way slowly up the road with our little suitcase of items in tow.







We did finally get to the venue and we got everything in order to sing our concert. By this point of the tour my throat had gotten quite sore from so much singing and I tried to do my best throughout the concert to sing but in a way that would preserve my voice. It is kind of a bummer not being able to be at full vocal strength for the entire time on stage, but it has taught me how to listen better and to appreciate just how good our group can really be. We have a lot of singers who are not feeling 100% but at the same time people are stepping up and blending so well that we are sounding just as good if not better than we would in the United States.