Sunday,
May 20
by Sam
Pritchard, sophomore bass
Drake
Choir began its second full day in Wales, the “Land of Song”, with a two-hour
drive through the beautiful Welsh countryside on our way to the northern part
of the country. We passed herds of sheep grazing on rolling hills that reminded
us all of being back home in the Midwest.
Our first
destination was Erddig, an early 18th-century county estate that is
often described as the “jewel in the crown of Welsh country houses.” The house
sits on a breath-taking property consisting of lush gardens and scenic views of
the neighboring hills. While the building itself has a long and impressive
history, most notable was the legacy left by the property’s owners, who
maintained a tradition of honoring and preserving the memory of the many
servants who worked on the estate. The landowners not only had portraits
painted of the servants, but also wrote humorous and, often, extended poems to accompany them. For example,
Thomas Pritchard, who served as head gardener for 40 years in the nineteenth
century, was described with “Our Gardener, old and run to seed, Was once a tall
and slender reed.” These paintings, photographs, and rhymes fill the walls in
the house’s lower level, and provided a wonderful perspective on the
individuals who made the estate what it was, and who are often forgotten by
history in favor of the wealthy aristocrats.
Later we traveled to Flint, Wales, where we joined the Flint Male Voice Choir for our evening concert. In contrast to the grand medieval cathedrals we have seen, this unassuming parish church was an intimate venue in which to share music. It didn’t take long for our singing to invoke some hearty Welsh praise. The Flint Male Voice Choir performed a wide variety of selections, including a stirring rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” which they learned especially for us.
A custom
we have quickly come to love in Welsh singing culture is the social gathering
that follows the concert, called an afterglow. The afterglow consists of food,
drink, and song, as we were serenaded by the Flint men with a number of
traditional Welsh folk songs, sung in true pub fashion. Ill-equipped to return
the favor with any comparable American songs, we resorted to joining in and
singing with them, which seemed to be more than all right with the “boys.” We
truly had a wonderful time sharing song and stories with the people of Flint!
Here is the link to 36 Sunday photos:
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