 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
The Birmingham Festival Choral Society is the earliest and longest established choir in the city. Formed in 1843 the choir is currently made up of around 100 members from across Birmingham, who perform several major concerts a season in major venues across the UK and abroad.
The choir tours abroad once every two or three years. Past visits include Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic (Prague and Southern Bohemia), Belgium and Holland.
In July 2006 over 70 members of the choir went on a tour of Slovenia and had many memorable experiences that included singing in a cave chamber and performing in several of the city’s magnificent historical churches. Listen to the wonderful voices of the choir and watch highlights from the tour, filmed by Keith Collins. A memorable tour
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
Liz Collins sings alto in the choir and has written about the memorable tour to Slovenia. Read her diary account of the trip below. Birmingham Festival Choral Society tour to Slovenia, 22 – 28 July 2006. Written by Liz Collins Saturday 22nd
We had a very early start setting off from the MAC in Cannon Hill Park. Our coaches left at 5:00am with everyone in good cheer. We ate smoked salmon sandwiches and bucks fizz on the way to the airport – thank you Alistair. Check in at Luton was smooth if tedious and we flew, courtesy of Wizz Air – yes really – to Ljubljana where we were met by our two couriers and transported to our hotel in the centre.
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
Sunday 23rd
Our first concert was at the beautiful Franciscan church in Ljubljana. After taking part in mass our concert took place immediately afterwards. We heard rumbling during the mass but it wasn’t really until Kevin’s virtuoso rendition of Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue’ that it became apparent that a thunderstorm was raging outside, making the music even more exciting. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever sung the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ to accompanying thunder and lightening! The concert was well received by our audience. Amazing acoustics
 | | Postojana Caves, Slovenia |
Monday 24th
Today we had the opportunity to visit the Postojana Caves, but only 5km of the 25km in total, 4km is done on a train and the remaining 1km is walked. The stalactites and stalagmites were amazing. There was a wonderful formation in the area called the ‘concert hall’ which looked just like an organ. Before boarding the train again we lined up to sing Elgar’ ‘Ave Maria’ and Stanford’s ‘Beati quorum’. After this we departed for the Predjama Castle which is set into the rocky hillside.
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
Some of us just couldn’t resist trying out the acoustics of the ‘escape hatch’ with a few bars of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’! Fortunately our music director, Patrick, was not there to hear us! Following our return to the hotel, a slightly smaller choir group went to an old people’s home to give a 20 minute concert. We were presented with a knitted teddy bear, made in the occupational therapy department. He has been named Yannis and is now our mascot. Making a charity donation
 | | Presenting the cheque to Sozitje |
Tuesday 25th We vacated our hotel and set off for Bled. En route our guide, David, told us a little about Slovenia and its history. We stopped at Radovlijica to perform a charity event for ‘Sozitje’ at Dom Matevza Langusa, an institution/school for the ‘mentally handicapped’, and for which the choir had collected money at our Malvern concert on 1 July. Patrick did an inspired piece of improvisation and we sang, unrehearsed, ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’, ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ and ‘Kumbayah’ as well as ‘Linden Lea’ and an abbreviated ‘Hallelujah’ before presenting a cheque for 243,000 Slovenian Tolars (approx £683 UK currency equivalent).
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
Well done Nick for organising that. There is a choir tradition of making a charity donation in the host country whenever we go on tour. The next stop on our pit stop tour was St Martin’s Church in Bled. It was rather a trek up to the church, especially in choir dress, but it was a beautiful church with very good acoustics. We again took part in the mass prior to the concert. We were all rather tired, but the moment we started to sing somehow we felt uplifted and it was a magical concert which received a standing ovation. Our music director was very pleased! Time out for sightseeing Wednesday 26th
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
Today we had some free time and went on a trip to Bled castle which was up a very steep hill – the wheelchair pushers deserve a special mention as they were determined our wheelchair member was going to see everything – and she did. Not many of us found the wine cellar where you could bottle your own bottle of Slovenian wine, I did and it was great fun. Then it was back down the hill for a short boat trip across lake Bled to a small island though some intrepid members swam across to the island. Now wouldn’t you think that we’d had enough of singing by now – not a bit of it, we had a 1pm appointment to sing two items on the island church – Elgar and Byrd.
 | | BFCS Slovenia tour 2006 |
There is a legend that if you pull the bell rope to ring the church bell and make a wish then that wish will come true. A few choir members were spotted pulling the rope. The rest of the day was ‘free time’ and lots of members were spotted swimming, paddling or lazing by Lake Bled. All good things come to an end Thursday 27th Today we had chance to tour some of the other beautiful sights of Slovenian before leaving the next day. This included Vogel mountain – in a cable car and lunch at Bohinj lake. Fortunately the large sun umbrellas kept the rain of us as well! There was also time for a walk by the lake before heading back to Bled, via Slovenian hayricks, picturesque villages and narrow tortuous roads.
 | | BFCS Slovenia Tour 2006 |
It was a test for the coach driver and he passed it with flying colours missing corners of buildings by inches. The whole group spent the final evening together at the hotel. Friday 28th Alas, all good things come to an end and we drove through Slovenia to Croatia and Zagreb airport where we boarded out flight back to Luton and thence coaches to MAC. Thanks to the tour committee, Tim, Alistair, Nick, Kathy, Margaret and Liz, and to Mark of ‘Melody Music’ for organising the trip, to Keith who bravely took a camera from the BBC to record it for posterity (and the BBC web site), to Laura who assisted him, to our music director Patrick, our organist Kevin and our soloist Sarah, to our ‘groupies’ who happily come along and support us.
 | | Birmingham Festival Choral Society |
But mostly to all the lovely members of BFCS who made the tour memorable and who also sang so beautifully. | 
