Sunday in Bristol - the last services

Sunday was our last day in Bristol - a busy day with a Choral Eucharist at 10 am and Choral Evensong at 3:30 pm.  We had an early start to the day before walking over to the cathedral.  The city was a MESS from the Harbour Festival, but was surprisingly all cleaned up by the end of Eucharist!  We were not allowed to arrive at the cathedral before 9:00 for rehearsal, which meant a very short warm up time for a Mozart Missa Brevis, Anglican Chant Psalm and the Britten Jubilate Deo.  Yikes.  The choir was put through their paces before the service began.  Instead of being seated in the choir stalls, we were placed in front of the screen behind the moveable altar - closer to the people, but the most horrible place to sing in, as the sound just went bouncing around the room like mad.  Poor Tim, our excellent organist, was really put to work.  Before the service began, the canon introduced the choir as being from Hudson, Ontario.  The verger almost had a fit, and we worked hard to contain our giggles.  This was only slightly better than being introduced as the choir from Houston, Ohio as we were at Evensong the day before.  All in all, the service went well.  Unbeknownst to me, during communion the "resident schizophrenic" as some put it entered the church and began to approach the area where the choir was.  Apparently, a couple of priest grabbed hold of him quite vigorously and forced him out of the building!  I would have loved to see that.

After the service we had tea with some members of the congregation - lovely, lovely people who were very appreciative of our presence.  We split up into little groups for lunch about town - our group went to a little Italian place just up the hill from the cathedral - we could see a little more of that Georgian architecture from Bath:

After lunch we went back to the cathedral to rehearse for evensong - our last service!  The canon who preached this service was a wonderful older gentleman who reminded me of Archbishop Rowan Williams, at least with the hair.  His sermon was witty, and included many funny moments that showed he had done his research on American politics...not bad for the second sermon of the day!  The choir was truly splendid - we sang the Harris service in E-flat, the Ayleward Responses and Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine, which simply soared into the vaulted ceiling.  After the service, we were allowed some time at the high altar to take a few photos.

After the service we were sad to leave - the space was just so gorgeous to sing in.  But we gathered all our belongings and boarded the bus back to the hotel.  Most people went off to their favorite pub to grab a celebratory pint - I joined Tim and Daniele Olsen at Seamus O'Donnell's, who just happened to have free wifi...

After dinner at the hotel, we did a last bit late night conversing at the hotel and then hit the sack - off to London on Monday!  The choral residency at Bristol was truly a wonderful experience and an enormous amount of work for the choir.  It is unusual for a volunteer choir to sing so much music over a short period of time.  I am immensely proud of their dedication and spirit throughout the whole process.  Buildings like Bristol Cathedral will probably never be built again - too expensive, too time consuming.  What a blessing to be able to experience worship in such a place - for some, a once in a life time chance.  We are immensely grateful for the opportunity. 

One more concert to go at Canterbury on Tuesday.  On to London via Salisbury tomorrow!