LAB 6  is busy preparing music to accompany Chanticleer's Mission Road project in June.  Classical Voice describes the project in which LAB will spread the word about the beautiful music from the California Missions:

http://www.sfcv.org/article/kids-around-the-bay-49

At last Saturday's rehearsal LAB worked with musicologist Craig Russell who has long edited music of the period for Chanticleer and is putting together this June's program.  He happened to come by and stayed for the whole rehearsal which was fun for everybody.

LAB also made a triumphant return to Caffe Trieste for Tango Revolution; there should be video soon!

A very cold and quiet Sunday in Pamplona – we ate and we walked, and contemplated what to do in the absence of Matt Knickman’s concert clothes. His bag finally got to Bilbao, where it stayed to be rejoined tomorrow morning. Matt went on stage in black – suit by Adam Ward, shoes and socks by Gregory, shirt and tie by Brian. Casey explained it all to the audience in Spanish ( his 6th language on this tour, including Ladin..) Tapas across the street from the stage door between warmup and the concert were great – Adam went out on a limb and had the thing with the little eels on it which he reported to be delicious. The audience was lovely – some of them had been at our last concert 6 years ago or so. And now we’re going home ( Pamplona-Bilbao-Munich-San Francisco.) Thanks for following us on this long and eventful trip. See you soon!

The tour was going to end in Selva Gardena, but when the people from Pamplona called, we couldn’t resist adding them. It has been at least 5 years since we were there, and we loved it last time. Seemed like a good way to end up. Getting there is another matter. We left our home away from home in Brixen after 3 days which were slightly nervewracking. We had the feeling that our hotel might have been a murder mystery haunted house destination, so very odd was it – lots of corridors leading to strange places, large empty public areas, stairways leading to rooms full of furnitures, spinning wheels with hair on them, mounted animal heads which seemed to be plastic…. And people around who some of us saw and some of us just didn’t. So it was with a slight sigh of relief that none of us had disappeared that we embarked for our epic journey to Pamplona. The bus arrived promptly ( always a bit of a concern in these parts) and we sped on to Innsbruck, where we seemed to have blundered into everybody from Scandinavia going home from skiing. Plane after plane leaving for Helsinki and Stockholm and Copenhagen. For a 2/12 hour wait, no where to sit – hardly even to stand, nothing to eat or drink – a mile long line for a vending machine was about it. We were lucky though, as every other flight was delayed, we snuck out of there in our prop plane over the alps. Never have we looked forward to arriving at Frankfurt Airport, but here we are in the fancy lounge with food and drink, a dynamite Wireless signal, awaiting the 8.20 to Bilbao, where we arrived on time and our bus La Pamplonesa was waiting for us. What was not waiting for us, however was Matthew Knickman’s luggage ( including concert clothes and music) so tune into see what we do about that tomorrow. Our l.50am arrival in Pamplona was too late to think about it! No complaints, of course, just thought you might like to know what we’re doing on this penultimate day of the tour. We’re looking forward to home.

Alan looked down into the audience at last night’s concert in Selva Gardena and was startled to think he saw his mother. Startled because he knew she was in Pennsylvania; if she were in the Italian Alps he would have known. After the concert he approached the woman, whose name was Clara, and told her how much she ressembled his mother. She responded warmly. She had brought a lot of friends to the concert and enjoyed it enormously. Alan still couldn’t get over how much she looked like his mother – and neither could we. After the 40 minute trip back down to Brixen, Alan and Matthew K. decided to go for a glass of wine. They entered the bar to a great roar of welcome which turned out to be Clara and her friends. She invited everybody back to her house – close by and across from Brixen Dom in a building which housed high level clergy. A memorable evening of song and conviviality ensued. It turns out that Clara is a known and accomplished singer and an incredible yodeller! Alan has evidence on his I-phone, and we’ll try to get it up here for you. The lady in the third photo down is Alan’s actual mother! These are the moments you couldn’t predict or bring about – it’s the serendipity which makes life on the road so much fun and so rewarding. .

Eric took the opportunity today to go up to see the mountains from a ski station at 2000m with Samuel and Toby – who are native speakers of Ladin, a language spoken here along with Italian and German. Samuel -the director of several choirs here who has brought his choirs to see us in various surrounding countries- has turned us on to a Christmas song in Ladin – so wait for it! The scenery is spectacular, as you can see, and our corner of Italy – although very cold and windy- is not buried in snow. The ski stations are packed so we were unable to stay any closer than Brixen, a 40 minute drive from Selva where we sang “Divine Love.” It was a beautiful drive up. In the middle of the third picture down you can see one of the fantastic frozen fountains which are a beautiful color of blue and lit from the inside. We had a last Italian meal of pizza and pasta and other good things and were slightly delayed in going on to warm-up by the suggestion of Tartufo Affogato… It was something like -15C when we arrived for warmup. The audience arrived bundled up and never had to take off their jackets, scarves, or in some cases hats during the show. ( Reminding us of Eindhoven a week or so ago) The acoustic was warm and easy, the public very concentrated and appreciative. They especially liked Casey’s few remarks in Ladin, as well as Italian, and Eric’s in German. It was probably -20 and a bit windy when we left to go back to Brixen. Tomorrow is one of those days which happens every so often in the ‘you can’t get there from here vein.’ Two bus rides, two plane flights separated by a 4 hour or so layover, and we should arrive around 2am in Pamplona for our last concert of this tour.