Emily speaks of German audiences

Hello! Emily Thorner here.

It's crazy and incredible to be back in Germany...because I was here only 8 weeks prior to our arrival. Here I was, hoping endlessly for years to make it back to Europe, and I have been singing here for most of the last few months. Unlike last time where I traveled alone, I am here with 14 other singers. It's incredible that we all come from such different backgrounds and are all different age ranges. So far, we have been sight reading aggressively to be as ready as possible, and it's impressive how well the first concert came together.

One of the things that astounds me most about singing here is the audiences of Germany. In America, you sing...you finish...and the applause varies in size but it always dissipates quickly. Here, they will applaud as long as they possibly can. What a difference! Our first concert was in a wet acoustic in the Martini Kirchof. Our second concert was in Celle (after meeting Fenster Mann! more on him to come...) and the space was the perfect acoustic for singing Tallis and Byrd. True success is when you can have each concert improve one after the other, and when you've only been working the material for a day or two. That would have been success enough, but the audience surprised us in a way I've never seen before. They applauded, and they wouldn't stop. Their clapping didn't decrease in size, it grew! And if that wasn't enough, they created a solid, rhythmic clap pattern: one that said, "we would love an encore!"

As icing on the cake, the audiences are incredibly kind. Mein Deutsch ist nicht perfect. Aber, die Leute sind froh zu sagen zu uns "du bist wunderbar!" One woman even told me that our singing brought tears to our eyes. They are grateful, kind, and happy to have us. In the U.S., the audiences are smaller, and in a tiny town you are lucky to have an audience. However, this audience was not only grateful, but full of excited audience members. To travel is to gain experience in life. We grow as singers when we explore outside of our limits. Experience is what life is all about.


---Thank you, Emily!