What fun a band of merry Culwick choristers had over a long weekend in Prague  during the Praga Cantat Festival at the end of October 2010.  There was a total of 37 singers (as is often the case there were more altos than members of other ranks!) and husbands, wives, friends and partners made the group up to 50.  David Leigh was our conductor on this occasion, and Fergal Caulfield our accompanist.

Shortly after we arrived in the city we got off to a very civilized start in the Irish Ambassador’s residence where we attended a most generous reception given by Ambassador Richard Ryan and his South Korean wife Heeun.  During his welcoming speech his Excellency, noting that our founder Dr James C. Culwick was also co-founder of Feis Ceoil, told us that when he was a little boy he had once won a medal at the Feis Ceoil for singing Báidín Fheilimí.  Donal Ahern presented him with a book on the Irish 19th Century artist Aloysius O’Kelly and shortly afterwards before leaving for our hotel we gave an impromptu a capella rendition of Mozart's Ave Verum.  Bernie Sherlock would have been delighted.

Saturday morning brought us to the Festival Hall at the National House to hear a timing-and-pitch-perfect welcoming concert.  This was given by the cream of young Czech choral singers the Bambini di Praga.  They sang national songs from countries as far ranging as Ireland to Indonesia and Austria to China, Azerbaijan and more.  After lunch, just before performing non-competitively, we had a brief rehearsal of our own musical programme, which included Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry.  Among others in the audience was Mrs Heeun Ryan, as we sang in front of the Czech Adjudicator Miroslav Kosler, a distinguished professor of choral direction and Artistic Director of Praga Cantat, who gave his appraisal to David Leigh after the performance.  He said that had we taken part competitively we would have been well placed as he judged that we sang to a very high standard.  

With our performance and with this good news behind us we were in great form for the next treat!  This was La Boheme in the sumptuous Prague State Opera.    The opera was fantastic:  not only was the singing beautiful but the acting was stunning.  Poor Mimi couldn’t have been a more convincing fatal TB victim.  Not a dry eye in the house.  The Czech baritone as Marcello gave a notable performance.  During the interval some of us had a glass of champagne for only €2 each!  The stage sets looked like they had been designed and painted by Toulouse Lautrec.  This had certainly been an action packed day.

On Sunday morning the Choir sang at a pre-arranged Catholic Mass in the Church of the Holy Cross in the old part of Prague.  After Mass the congregation turned toward the choir balcony and applauded.  The non-singing members of  our group who were among the congregation said we had given our best performance of the weekend! 

In the afternoon we were taken on a guided tour of the city and a visit to Prague Castle by our guide for the weekend,  the ever pleasant and smiling Ivana (her fulltime job is as a pharmacist when she's not doing weekend work as a guide).

After dinner on Sunday evening we went back to the National House Festival Hall for the closing ceremony of the Festival during which Donal Ahern was presented with a certificate and a porcelain bell to commemorate the Culwick Choral Society’s participation in the Praga Cantat Festival.

If you thought that was all, it wasn’t!  

Shortly after our arrival back to our hotel it was suggested that one of our group might play the piano.  There had been a lonely unplayed locked piano placed strategically in the centre of the large hotel lobby.  The key was found and once the piano was unlocked both Olivia O’Leary and Liz Coyle accompanied our members who began singing, raising the curiosity and hopefully enjoyment of onlookers in the lobby.  Suddenly hordes of thirty, forty, maybe even sixty German men who seemed to come from nowhere surrounded the piano and began singing with us in perfect harmony and geniality.  They were the members of Männerchor "Sangeslust" Hünsborn (male choir, "lover of song", from village of Hünsborn) www.sangeslust.de, who had come to participate in the Festival and who were also staying in our hotel.  Singing continued on into the early hours.

What a time!  And hopefully we will all do it again either there or at some other European choral festival.   

Brigid Tiernan