Minsk

For those who wish to see an edit of our singing on the plane...
HERE it is...
Enjoy!

Remarkable day so far... we found ourselves, after our small recital at a giant orthodox church had been organised by the British Embassy, in the midst of the celebrations for the new Big Cheese in the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Metropolitan Bishop); he and his entourage came to our recital, with a great deal of the congregation!
Then we were invited to eat with them all after... thus experiencing many singings of Orthodox chants and chorales... someone was singing every 5 minutes throughout lunch (including, at the Ambassador's behest, us!)
The choir of the church were also represented (tho' some of them were at work) and gave us three carols... brilliant exchange of cultures...
...and we were filmed on Orthodox TV (which goes to 48 countries), interviewed and filmed for Belarusian TV... phew!
The Metropolitan was very gracious to us, and all enjoyed our recital... We sang Gaudete, Bist du bei mir, Oranges & Lemons, Byrd, Mozart, Sullivan and Poulenc...
We even managed to add some Taverner (The Lamb) into the programme, in tribute, of course, as he recently died, but also as Orthodoxy was such a pillar in his life.

More later, after we have done our evening performance together with our friends, Camerata