Day 8 - The Mayor, The Guggenheim and the city of Durango

We met at 9:30 this morning and walked over to meet and sing for the mayor of Bilbao. They were very excited about our visit and wished us well. We sang "Steal Away," which they loved, and gave us all a souvenir bag with some goodies about Bilbao. 

We met Xavi in the parking lot and we were off to the Guggenheim. Wow!  The architectural structure is simply amazing!  The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, the same architect of the Disney Music Hall in LA. Artwork from the mid-20th century to the present day, there was for sure, lots to see!  One of the groups enjoyed singing in a portion of the museum where there were cave like structures. The chaperones sitting out in the main floor heard their voices echo through the museum!  Quite cool!

After our time spent in there, we enjoyed the area surrounding the museum for a few hours and then were back on the bus to go to the small town of Durango, about 30 min from the museum. There we had a rehearsal in preparation for our outdoor concert later that evening. The kids sang through most all of their tour repertoire, providing about an hour long concert for the locals of that town. The town was small and quaint, with older buildings and great ice cream. Despite the challenging singing conditions, singing outside on a somewhat windy day where acoustics were a bit challenging, the concert was very well received by all the audience and an encore was had!!  

Basiliou, the conductor or Kantika Leoia provided a delicious dinner of fruit and amazing sandwiches that everyone enjoyed, and then we were back on the bus, heading back to be picked up and  head to bed for tomorrow morning!  Goodnight back home, we're heading to bed soon too!!

Click through the slideshow below to view some highlights from today: