I guess I am a choir nerd

Today was the opening ceremony to the big Latvian Song and Dance Festival. It happens only once every 5 years and is certainly something that you can experience nowhere else. The day started with a parade through town where all of the groups who are participating in the festival wind their way through the streets in their traditional outfits singing and dancing. We watched the beginning of it, visited for a while in the hotel (some of our group's rooms face the street that they walk down), grabbed lunch, walked through the park/festival craft booths, took a nap, went to city hall to meet with some of the orphans who are connected to my dad's program, and left there for a church service around 5:00 pm it was *still* going on. It started at 11:00 am and likely finished around 6:00 or 6:30 - holy CRAP that is a long parade! And some of the spectators watched the entire thing! After the church service with the orphans we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then went to the opening ceremony.

For the opening ceremony imagine the Hollywood Bowl outdoor amphitheater but way more massive. Sondra, the city official who has been taking us around, told me before the show began that they just finished remodelling the stage about a week ago and that they were all very nervous that it wasn't going to be ready in time for the big event. Aaron and I estimated that for the beginning songs there were about 3,000 people on stage! A few songs later about 2/3 of the people left the stage and thousands (not exaggerating) of kids ran up on stage for several song and dance numbers where they were also joined by a Latvian pop star. The kids left the stage, others joined back in, and about 2,000 people continued with the singing.

All of the songs and introductions to the songs were of course in Latvian but even though we did not understand the language we were able to appreciate the massive coordination and talent it took to put on such a show. My choir nerd side certainly has come out - I was one of the only that wanted to stay when the group decided to leave at about 11:30 pm. At that point it appeared we were only about 1/2 way through the program and not every one was in it for the long haul.

I found the performers to be so talented and the singing amazing. Even with literally thousands of voices on stage, the clarity of their tone and diction and was so on point that you could understand every syllable and hear the beauty of the music as written exactly by the composers as though it were only a few voices. I don't imagine that I will have the opportunity to hear or experience anything like again that anytime soon.