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After another long bus ride, this time from Monte Caseros, we arrived safely in Buenas Aires last night about 3 am. We are now heading out for a last few hours of shopping for presents to bring home to family and friends. See you all at the Boston airport!

Monte Caseros Encuentra Coral International

BCS Argentina

Monte Caseros

Encuentro Coral International de Ninos y Jovenes

August 17-19 2013

Music and oranges are everywhere in Monte Caseros. Streets teem with choruses from throughout the region; choral songs pour out into public courtyards where the choruses are rehearsing; and townspeople hum the songs they are hearing throughout their small town of just 7000 people. The many hand-made banners that flutter across dirt streets and that mark rehearsal and performance spaces show that this Encuentro Coral International is a bit like bringing the Olympics to town. The whole town turns out in support, often armed with boxes of mandarins as gifts to share with the choruses.

The festival director Paula Eberhart, an American who is married to a local rancher, enthusiastically greeted us the first night of our arrival with news of the festival and boxes of sweet local mandarins. She told us that the festival is usually held in October, when the weather is warmer and the regional choirs are more fully rehearsed, but well after the local orange season. With news of our trip, however, she moved the date two months earlier to coincide with our visit. The bonus effect of that shift in date is the mandarins, which tumble from trees in a profusion of orange balls. “You are so lucky to be here at this time of year! It is our citrus season and you are about to taste some of the best in the world.” As we bit into one mandarin after another, we knew that she was right. Florida should watch out for the Corrientes growing region of Argentina.

Across the sunny flats of Corrientes province, the agricultural epicenter of Argentina, local schools and community choruses look forward to the Encuentro Coral. These children of farmers, ranchers, agricultural distributors, and government workers, come to the festival annually to share their music and techniques and to learn from each other and from a featured conductor.  Money is tight in Argentina and inflation is rampant. Choruses scrape money together little by little throughout the year to join this big sing. With the shift in date from October to August, some regional choruses were unable to join, not having enough time to finish fundraising for their travel. The choruses that could fund the trip doubled their rehearsals to be well enough prepared to show their repertoires off to Pablo di Mauro, a celebrated choral director from Buenas Aires, who joined the festival as the featured conductor. He, too, said that he shifted his schedule specifically to join the festival three months earlier than he had originally planned. The XVII annual Encuentro Coral was not to be missed.

Local families also shifted their daily schedules to welcome our singers. Festival director Paula Eberhart leveraged her connections throughout the town to match small groups of singers with local English teachers and chorus members, allowing our singers to learn the rhythms of daily life in this small town of about 7000 people. Walker, Josh, and Patrick stayed with the Piloni family, who raise cattle and grown citrus on their extensive estancia. Their farm dates back to their Italian ancestor who came to Argentina over a century ago when land was cheap and immigrants with grit and farming know-how could carve out prosperous new lives. Today, the family sells their citrus abroad, coincidentally exporting it as far away as Italy. Their kitchen is piled high with crates of mandarins—so delicious, Patrick says, that "you beg for another!" Each morning, they squeeze the mandarins into fresh orange juice and serve it with farm fresh eggs, purchased from their neighbor. After breakfast, each family drops their singers off at the central rehearsal space, where the chatter of teens comparing notes on their wonderful families overtakes yawns from late nights. For every singer the warm hospitality of “Mi casa es su casa” made the homestays four of the best nights we have spent in Argentina.

The music of the Encuentro Coral is also filled with the warmth of people who are friends first and singers second. Although nearly every moment of the day was occupied with one kind of workshop or rehearsal, singers stumbled through conversations in “Spanglish” to build strong friendships with the Corrientes singers. Conductor Pablo di Mauro worked with all the groups to help them extend their repertoires, including the American spiritual “He Hasn’t Failed Me” and a moving rendition of “Gloria.” In concluding performances on both Saturday and Sunday nights, all ten of the choruses crowded together shoulder to shoulder on the stage for thrilling performances of these songs under Pablo’s direction. The whole town had turned out for the concerts and was swept away in the thrill of well over a hundred voices in harmonious song.

The festival ended late on Monday with final communal concert at the local hot springs. 

"Bring me Little Water, Sylvie" video clip

Our resident composer, videographer, accompanist, and all-star artist Tal Zilber is making a video of our musical adventures in Argentina. Here is a preview from the video of "Bring me Little Water, Sylvie": https://drive.google.com/?tab=mo&authuser=0#my-drive

Feel free to share the clip with friends and family!

Josh "Let the record state ..."

Iguazu Falls

BCS Argentina

Iguazu Falls

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Twenty-five hours on the bus may seem like a very long time, especially when a cold is incubating among your fellow travelers, but the cramped, steamy quarters quickly evaporated from our memories with the arrival in Iguazu. There, host families awaited eager to tell us about the wonders of their home town. Just outside the town, a rainforest preserve guards one of the Seven Wonders of the World, where magnificent falls cascade from majestic heights, joining three rivers and three countries in a spectacle so vast no camera can do it justice.

While the town itself revolves primarily around the ebbs and flows of tourism, el Parque de Iguazu moves to the rhythms of nature. Our walk through the preserve revealed not just the magnificence of the falls but also the life of the rainforest. Tourists follow an elaborate network of wrought iron suspension bridges through the rainforest and over the calmer waters of the falls to lookout points that bring the power of the place to life. As we meander along the path, we notice first the wildlife that fearlessly follows humans. Yellow-breasted birds with black masks boldly alight on tourists’ fingers in search of empanada crumbs. Families of coatis, a cousin to the raccoon, meander among the tables of the snack stands sniffing out cookies inside our backpacks. Then there is the wildlife that co-exists, seemingly oblivious to human presence. Long-legged pipers stalk the grass and beach areas in search of insects, reminding Josh of Cape Cod sandpipers. Cormorants preen themselves in the sun on the rocks that extend beneath the iron suspension walkways that lead us through the rainforest. Swallows build nests in the support rods of the path beneath our feet. And we look out on the Swifts, little birds that flit like sprites in and out of the waterfalls to their nests on the rocks within. They part the rapidly flowing water as if it were nothing more than a curtain in their doorway. The ranger tells us that deeper in the forest are also toucans, parrots, monkeys, colorful snakes, ocelots, and occasional jaguars.

The water itself is high now, filling out the full array of falls across the canyons. A rainy winter means that the island beach at the center of the canyon is closed to tourists, its beaches immersed under an additional seven meters of water from the Iguazu and Parana rivers. The rain, though, also reveals the falls to us in their fullest glory. Our tour guide tells us that most visitors see only the most dramatic of the falls because the rivers seldom flow with such torrential force to fill out the full crown.

As we emerge from our jungle walk, we see first the vapor of the falls at Devil’s Throat, where the water falls at up to 10,000 cubic meters per minute, making it the most well-known of all the Iguazu waterfalls. This is the sacred falls where the Guarani Indians believed that god and the devil battled for souls. Those who lived in perfect unity with nature could safely navigate the upper shores of the falls; those who violated the principles of harmony would plummet to their deaths, pulled down by the inexorable force of the “devil’s throat.” Guarani legend also describes the jealous rage of a god whose bride, Naipí, fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe across the river. The god sliced the river in two, creating the waterfalls but condemning the lovers to an eternal fall. With those stories still resonating for us, the falls were suddenly upon us. The metal suspension path came to a sudden stop at an overlook that had each of us certain we had come upon not heaven exactly but that perfect Facebook photo that your friends will never believe. A rainbow glistened through the mist as the clouds parted for the first sunshine of the day. Jane remarked simply that rainbows and blue skies always follow BCS.

Leaving Devil’s Throat, we headed around the crown of the waterfall to see several other falls—just a few of the 275 discrete falls within the Iguazu necklace. Ferns burst across our path and vines wrapped themselves around the hand railings along the suspension trail, a profusion of green that prevented us from seeing more than a few feet into the rainforest beyond the path. The panorama of one waterfall after another broke our sense of enclosure and still more rainbows offered more opportunities for singers to proclaim, “the best Facebook photo ever!”

For Tal Zilber, BCS’s extremely talented composer and accompanist, those Facebook moments were also opportunities to assemble the chorus into rousing renditions of “Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie.” Tourists stopped to listen as we sang loudly over the white noise of the falls, with Tal capturing the moment for a DVD he is preparing for our singers at the end of the trip. I heard one tourist exclaim to his group how lucky they were to witness this impromptu concert in such a beautiful place. He was not the only one. I imagine that many of these tourists posted their lucky encounters with our singers at Iguazu Falls to their own Facebook pages, spreading the song of “Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie” worldwide.

For the smallest sample of Iguazu Falls, try to imagine the photos in our Shutterfly album full scale, embracing your entire horizon. Then you’ll begin to feel the wonder of this place.

Shutterfly link:

Devil’s Throat

Natalie, Jennifer, and Guiverlly at Iguazu

All of us at Iguazu

Miren and Flora on Homestays

Miren and Flora on Homestays

Iguazu and Monte Caseros

August 14, 2013 

In Iguazu and again in Monte Caseros, singers are staying with local families whose children are in the choruses that we perform with. Our singers are housed with families in groups of two, three, or four, depending on how many the family is able to accommodate. Everyone agrees that their homestays are some of the best experiences of the trip.

In Iguazu, Miren talked about how she bonded with her family: 

"The little girl Katty and her mom were super nice. Even though they didn’t speak much English, they made us feel at home. Their house is a very homey place with lots of art on the walls. (The mother is an artist.) They said that they were going to move soon to another neighborhood, though, because they have been robbed a couple of times. My favorite part of staying there was playing with the animals. They have four cats (mostly kittens) and one dog. They served us a simple, but delicious, dinner of toast with cheese and ham. When we left, they made us promise to bring our families and come visit them again."

In this photo, Miren is sampling the traditional drink Yerba Mate for the first time. She pronounced it "grassy but tasty."

Flora agreed that it was fun to connect with the ten-old-boy in her homestay family. She said that even though he spoke no English, he would copy their English and gestures and follow them around the house. The next day when she and her roommate singers went shopping in the tourist boutiques in downtown Iguazu, he saw them from across the street. He came running over with his “girlfriend” to introduce her to them, eager to show off his new American friends.

In most instances the families who have hosted us have made a real effort to connect with us across the language barrier. We are bringing home irreplaceable experiences of living – if only for a few days – with local families who love music as much as we do.

Julia Ellis: Museo de la Memoria y "Como la cigarra"

Julia Ellis

Museo de la Memoria

August 13, 2013

In Rosario, we visited the Museo de la Memoria (“Museum of Memory”). The museum is open to the public as a place to comprehend a time of extreme disregard of habeas corpus and persecution in the Dirty War, beginning with the presidency of Isabel Peron, from 1976 to 1983. Its power directly impacted even the lives of our tour guides, Daniel Viggiani and Susana Neira.

The city council democratically voted to create the museum just 15 years ago, designating its location in the very building that served as the headquarters for the military that plotted widespread Argentine political persecution. The goal of the museum is to educate people about human rights and the abuses of a terrible era in Argentinian political history. The central jail has been renovated now to serve as a government training center and a venue for democratic activities. We could see election leaders training poll workers that day for Sunday’s provincial elections. (Note: The national election resulted in President Cristina Fernandez’s government losing significant ground to opposing parties. See Euronews report.)

As we peered through the bars of former prison cells, we were met with the stark realization of the building’s irony. Built to house a police force to defend the people, the building became a place of national terror. The ceilings dangled with the library cards of people who had simply vanished. The tables where military personnel had once processed prisoners were covered with historical essays about the times in which the human soul has been compromised for power. The orange stucco walls both inside and outside of the building were covered in expressive art, graffiti, and colorful murals in memory of those who were lost. Ironically, the central plaza within the building now serves as a skate park, a public amenity. Everything about the building and plaza forms a statement on the importance of political memory and democratic institutions.

The museum also serves as a leitmotif for the concept of using art as a coping device. If nothing else, this incredibly emotional visit for BCS served as a confirmation that what we do as singers can be used as a tool for advocacy. One mural painted onto the exterior of the building with the lyrics of “Como la cigarra”, a popular song banned by Isabel Peron’s government. Written by Maria Elena Walsh at the beginning of the Dirty War in 1972, the song signifies our survival of the things that will otherwise kill us. BCS is now attempting to learn this song so that we can bring home the message of the Argentine people who have suffered needlessly.

A note on “Como la cigarra”: It was Julia’s idea to have the chorus learn the song as a tribute to the Argentinians who disappeared in the Dirty War.

Josh Holtzman: The Very Long Bus Ride (from Cordoba to Iguazu)

Josh Holtzman

August 13, 2013

25-hour bus ride from Cordoba to Iguazu

The Plague Ship

I sit here on the steamy second story of the grand double-decker Serrano tour bus, pondering a horrifying realization. No longer is the content of this vessel’s air the usual healthy balance of nitrogen, oxygen, and other minor gases needed to sustain life. It is instead a warm incubator for a cold that one singer allegedly brought with her from summer camp last week. We have been cooped up together in the stuffy, steamy second story of this otherwise comfortable bus for a grand total of 20 hours. We have had a few short breathers outside, but mainly, most of these hours have been spent in attempts to sleep, to read, and to entertain ourselves, on our way to Iguazu Falls.

The story of this imbalance of airy proportions began only a few days ago. It was then that we noticed a small group of people sniffling and coughing. At this point in time, many rumors have flown throughout the crowded bus of who infected who, and who started it all. Some people are even starting to develop conspiracy theories, such as that we brought this sickness from Boston itself, or that someone is spreading it on purpose which, by the way, is absolutely preposterous. Within days, we noticed the prominent spread of this mild cold to each and everyone in the choir—even to our tour guide, Susana, and to our chaperones and choral directors. I think I got it one or two days ago, before our one-night stay in Cordoba. If there was ANYBODY who was not sick by yesterday, they are most definitely coughing and aching by now. I was discussing with Emily and friends of the virus slowly concentrating the air of our bus cabin as we spoke. One of them, maybe Emily, mentioned the Chinese Plague Ships. She told of how this was sort of a biological bomb, and the first form of biological warfare in the world. Of course, we were never a very pugnacious bunch, but as our tall blue bus sails through a sea of red dirt, palm trees, and rusty warehouses, I cannot help but imagine this long, thin vessel as a biological missile, ready to explode upon our host families in Iguazu.

Yet, currently, despite the calls for tissues and cough drops, we are keeping ourselves happy with cookies and movies. Last night, we saw Argo, and today Skyfall. Quality movie choices indeed. Now playing--Lincoln. Again, quality programming. With only a few hours left to our scheduled contact time, I have but one thing to say to the town of Iguazu--“Look out Iguazu! Here comes the Plague Ship!” Achoo indeed. *HOoOoNnNnKk* *cough cough* ARRRRRRRRgo….(yet I won’t continue the joke.)