Once again Francisco Araiza was with us in Munich. He is also a member of the finals jury in October and this year for the first time we are doing preliminary auditions in Mexico city which he is organizing for us. So as well as being of great assistance in the assessment of the candidates on Tuesday and yesterday, he was a great excursion planner for my first trip to Mexico City. This will be in August and we have now fixed the hotel and the itinerary for my day off - you will be able to read about it and have a fully illustrated description here around August 20! In addition of course I hope you bring you news of the emerging talent in Mexico. Their should be good mezzos and tenors.......
We picked up some nice singers in Munich. Albania has now emerged as a huge untapped source of talent. This year this country has produced some extremely interesting candidates. It occurred to me that this country, cut off for more than half a century from the rest of the world thanks to the extreme left wing dictatorship that closed it down, must have a whole missing generation of singers who might have become remarkable stars. Inva Mula is one of the few we have seen in the west. (Someone correct me please - there must be others) But there may now be an avalanche if the singers we have seen in the last week are any indication.
We had a pretty stressful day yesterday all round. We managed to get through the whole list - there were very few cancellations in the afternoon so everyone got horribly bunched up. But we made it - and could, as it turned out, have gone for hours longer given that my 8.30 flight was cancelled and we did not take off until well after 10pm.
Anyway we had a great lunch - always a feature of Bertelsmann auditions in Germany! This time it was at terrific deli store, grocery store, wine store and, on the second floor, a fabulous restaurant. This was Kaefer on Prinzregenten Strasse. If you are ever around that part of town don't miss it.
We go this morning to our auditions at the Clara Schumann Music School. More news later after our long day to come.
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