Enniscorthy Choir travelled to Vienna from the 7th of December to the 11th of December 2006. Thirty seven people travelled in total and within that number we had 30 singing choristers , a Musical Director of enormous talent and 6 very loyal and friendly natives!! Everything ran smoothly with our travel arrangements and we met a choir from Limerick who were travelling on the same flight with us. We arrived in Vienna and saw the city for the first time at night with it's beautiful and elegant Christmas lights and after a long day's travel we were all happy to relax and prepare ourselves for the exhausting days ahead.
Astrid was our group contact for our stay and all the males of the species suddenly became very anxious to get a personal crash course in German. I have her mobile number for any member interested but a donation to a worthy local cause will have to be made before I could even contemplate the release of the same!!. She worked very hard to secure concert seats and dinner reservations for the choir at short notice and ensured that we arrived back in one piece from our trip to the outback on Saturday night!!
On Saturday night we went native and we joined forces with a choir from the Basque region of Spain and both choirs performed for each other and Maureen Walsh our soloist played a blinder. It was as good as the Munster win again st Biarritz and we were told by our Basque friends that we were World Champions. Alcohol has a lot to be responsible for!! However those details are for later and the party continued on the bus and in the Hotel after we returned .A plea bargain was negotiated with the lovely hotel manager and Garry started proceedings with another solo on the trumpet.Garry feels that he can perform much better abroad and is actively undergoing therapy to ensure that he can at least lose his inhibitions much quicker in Enniscorthy in future!! We also had a fantastic version of Delilah where the performer who shall remein nameless for the present gave one of his best displays ever of his knowledge of dynamics and his controlled use of the same!! The late night revellers were then joined by an African group who were performing in Vienna and staying in the hotel to finish off the session. All I can confirm is that anyone sleeping on the first floor or second floor were treated to a free concert whether they liked it or not. It's rumoured that the hotel phone system crashed on the night with agents phoning to see who they could sign up for recording contracts.
