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July 25, 2007— to Riva Del Garda

We had a fairly long drive today. We left Gubbio and headed north towards the Alps. We stopped at an Autogrill for lunch and continued to Riva, on Lake Garda. We rested on the bus, and had a little time to poke around town before changing and meeting for dinner and the concert. The lake here reminds me a lot of Lake Como, with mountains going right down into the lake. It's somewhat windy here, making it a good spot for windsurfers.

TThe town has a concert series for 40 days every summer. There are posters all around town, both for the festival and for our concert specifically. Our concert is in the courtyard of the old Town Hall (I think that's what the building is). It's not quite symmetrical but the acoustics are actually quite good since it's entirely enclosed on four or five sides (though no roof). We had an awful rehearsal, with lots of missed words, repeated mistakes, and lack of focus. Hopefully we call pull it together for Alex, David, Adam, and Terrence's last concert.

Concert time came and it was dark, which is course makes sense but we had rehearsed a double-choir piece surrounding the audience. The boys found their spots well, and I stood on stage to conduct where it was light and they could see me, but I couldn't see any boys at all, I just had general directions of which section was where, and it turned out fine.

We got into a good rhythm in the second half of this concert, with good stage presence and lots of energy. The audience was very enthusiastic, and we did end up doing both Hey Jude, and Va Pensiero with Henry conducting. The audience loved it and Matt took their photo again, which amidst the clapping and the bowing and the lighting, I don't think they noticed at all.

After the concert we got the boys some gelato for a job well done.