50 Shades of Green: Day 3

(pictures will be added much later. if you're impatient, you can visit my facebook album for this trip)

We took a bus tour of Dublin (which resulted in a lot of blurry photos). The sky was overcast and therefore, not the best lighting to take photos in. There are a lot of bridges in Dublin, but I was most  fascinated by all the apartment doors that were painted in a variety of bright colors.

Afterwards, we were dropped off at Christ Church Cathedral (where we played Concert #1 that evening with Paul Byrom, an Irish tenor) and were allowed to disperse and get lunch while we were at it.

Annika, Clara, and I ended up stopping at a coffee shop to load up on caffeine...and I ended up getting a double shot of espresso which was a really bad idea because it made my hands shake (and thus taking pictures from this point was made even more difficult).

We walked around and ended up seeing and hearing some street musicians and wandering cobblestone streets. All the buildings are different colors and styles; modern glass buildings alongside the River Liffey, large estates in the embassy area, red brick apartments with doors in every color, gothic-style churches and cathedrals, and colorful storefronts, some ornate and others more rundown.

Afterwards, when everyone met back at The Christ Church Cathedral, we did a soundcheck in the Cathedral to get used to the acoustics (aka our second rehearsal with Paul Byrom that was more just a runthrough of everything) and then we headed back to DCU (Dublin City University, where we have been staying) to get dinner and change into concert clothes.

We left our instruments all locked up at the church and we were all a bit apprehensive about it, but ... who would rob a church? Everything was okay, all equipment was there when we came back.

Jazz ensemble does the pre-concert but since it's raining outside, they play inside the cathedral. Then orchestra played. Academic Festival Overture, Misty Mountain Mvmt 2 (Double Fugue), Copland's Hoe Down, The Last Summer (with Paul Byrom), Go the Distance (with Paul Byrom), You Raise Me Up (with Paul Byrom), Remember Me (with Paul Byrom) (who apparently his father-in-law wrote), and then jazz ensemble headed back on stage while orchestra headed to the back.

After theirs, we gave an encore performance of Derby County, and then the audience all stood up so Dr. D played another movement from Irish Suite, and the audience stood up again, and so Dr. D played another movement. There were several audience members crying and it was a rellief to see that they liked the music.

The concert was over at 10pm and we got back to DCU at 11pm. We are exhausted out of our minds. Poor Emil, he had the hardest job. He is the only trumpet in jazz and he's 1st chair in orchestra, so he was playing this whole concert...and we have a lot of trumpet solos in our pieces. And the movements that Dr. D happened to choose to play for the encore were also trumpet-heavy.

That's it. Tomorrow we have to have our luggage packed by 7am because we're driving to Cork!