The Chorale in Israel - July 7-8

I’m happy to report that El Al realizes the Collegiate Chorale deserves celebrity treatment. At the airport we were all ushered as a group to the head of the line and processed by agents who were, appropriately, using music stands as makeshift desks. After an eleven-hour flight, we arrived in a rather dazed state at our hotels, where we had only a few minutes to collapse before getting back on the busses for our welcome dinner. The hotels are two side-by-side Bauhaus buildings (most of Tel Aviv is Bauhaus style), one of which is a quite beautiful former cinema that shows Charlie Chaplin silent films on the wall of the lobby. Our welcome dinner was in Jaffa, the part of the city that was here before Tel Aviv was founded—it’s the place from which Jonah set sail on route to his encounter with the whale, so it’s been around for a while. We couldn’t see much on the way, but we caught some glimpses of the Mediterranean. The restaurant was a lot of fun—long communal tables that were already covered with little dishes of pickled things and Middle Eastern spreads, falafel, and flat bread when we arrived. It seems to be the place to come for your birthday in Tel Aviv; periodically a loud, sort of jazzy recording of “Happy Birthday to You,” modulating into “Supercalifragilistic” would resound through the room. After about the sixth repetition, some of the more sensitive musicians in the group were threatening to stab themselves (or others) with their shish-kebab skewers. Then home to our hotels, where we all collapsed, despite the fact that by New York time it was only 3 in the afternoon.

Janet Pascal - Chorale Member and Music Librarian