Singing City Notes

Singing City arrived in Belgrade Monday afternoon July 2, safe and sound and a little weary from our two flights! From the airport we went directly into a 3 hour long city tour. Whew! I'm not sure whether anything could have prepared us for Belgrade's sights or the vastly complicated history of this city and the region. Our guide pointed out that Belgrade was severely bombed four times in the 20th century, surely something of a record. Sitting as it does at the confluence of the Danube and Salva rivers, it is directly in the path between central Europe and Turkey... one begins to understand why this has been the site of so many invasions, so much violence over the centuries. In spirte of everyone's physical state, we managed to soak up the bus tour and the two walking tours - first visiting the enormous unfinished Orthodox Cathedral, then a second walking tour through the pedestrian zone and up to the ancient fortress that overlooks the Danube. Quite amazing, really. And, yes, it is very hot here!! Somehow, seeing the temperatures advertised while in Philadelphia didn't quite begin to capture the intensity of the sunlight here in Belgrade. Our guide was a charming young man who was a college student at the outbreak of the civil war. When asked how people of the region felt about Americans I felt he was dipolmatically evasive.... in a nutshell, he expressed that the Serbs had been promised one thing by NATO and the US but at the end, did not get what they were promised. He expressed that many here were angry at the bombardment of the city by NATO and the US, with extra anger reserved for Secretary of State Albright. Well, we'll see what we glean over the coming days. As to our reception, everyone has been charming and friendly. We have learned that we are only the 2nd American choir to visit Belgrade... and the first to go to Saraajevo. This morning Lauren Anderson and I had the pleasure of appearing LIVE on Serbian national TV. Wow... I don't think we bombed, but it sure was interesting! Tonight is our first concert, hosted by the Belgrade Choral Society (its members are hard at work cooking the post-concert dinner as I write this!!) More on that later.