I had to leave for the bus to Sligo from Galway as Trinity Singers was going to compete in the Sligo International Choral Festival.
As I arrived an hour earlier than the rest of the society coming up from Dublin, I had time to snag ourselves a lovely donner kebab with chips (even got a free tub of garlic mayo) before heading to the Harbour House Hostel which we booked out entirely.
The lovely landlady welcomed and treated us to the grand tour of the place.
She was an absolute dote.
She had a warm fire lit.
She rearranged the furniture so we had more space in the hang-out area downstairs.
She stocked the kitchen with tons of food and drink!
The fridge was full with cartons of milk, apple juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, butter and an assortment of jams.
There were more than five types of cereal, oats, bread. coffees, breakfast tea, and peppermint tea.
She even got us honey and lemon (for our voices in case we needed it)
And the best part, she baked two big boxes of scones for us.
nd even re-baked a fresh batch the following day!
She was the most welcoming host ever who even remembered our names for the entire trip we were there. The comfort we felt staying in that hostel was unbelievable.
We were definitely as chirpy as can be with all that food.
The next morning the Boydell Singers competed first in their category and they came in second! They did an absolutely splendid job too.
The Trinity Singers on the other hand, took the time to rehearse our songs before our category.
Unfortunately we placed 4th in our category out of 10 because our first piece, Adoramus Te (Palestrina), was criticised for being too simple. But we received great feedback for our performance of Didn’t the Lord Deliver Daniel (Moses Hogan)
Ironically…. we went to the finals because the three choirs who placed in our category had already placed first in other categories and were already in the final.
So we hurried back to the other hostel and prepared to perform ‘Sleep’ by Eric Whitacre in place of our ‘Adoramus Te’ as part of the rules of the competition is to replace one of the previously performed songs with another.
Our second performance was way better than our first.
We were more confident, excited, and happy to just be given the second chance to show what we could do.
The results came, the Park Singers came first, but we were still so thrilled by our performance that we absolutely partied the night away at HMV Soundgarden till the early morn.
The weekend was absolutely amazing.
It was slightly sad that it was my last trip and competition with Trinity College Singers.
It’s been four years of beautiful memories.
This was definitely the most memorable one though.
For good reason.
