Geburtstag - 1.12.12

This morning we got up and drove into the heart of Rheinland-Pfalz.  We arrived in Idar-Oberstein and went to the Christuskirche, a beautiful protestant church where we had our concert.

After the dress rehersal, we had lunch and went up to the Burg Oberstein, a cool castle where we sang at the local Christmas market.

We had a few minutes to walk around the castle and look at the shops that had been set up.  When we were in a little room in the dungeon, a salesman noticed that I had a songbook in my hand and made us sing a song, so we sang the alto and bass parts of a Christmas song.  It was fun!
After dinner, we warmed up and sang our concert.  We made a few mistakes, but we were given a standing ovation at the end.
For those of you that weren't there (probably everybody reading my blog), here is a link to a youtube video of an Armenian choir singing Vivaldi's Gloira in D.  Yes, we also sang all twelve parts.  That was about half of our concert.  I was the guy in the back with the bow tie, except our choir was less Armenian and more German, and instead of an orchestra we had a pipe organ, a harpsichord, a piano, a cello, and a flute.  It was a beautiful Christmas concert, and probably the classiest thing I've ever done.  After the concert, I got to play a little Bach on the harpsichord:

When we got back to Frankfurt, it was snowing.  It was probably the best birthday I've ever had.