The VOENA Family!!: July 2012

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Voena London/Dublin Trip - Day 9 - Coming HOME!

Today VOENA has an extremely long day: up at 5am, off to the airport, fly out of Ireland to Chicago at 10 am, 2.5 hour layover, then fly from Chicago to SFO - arriving at 5:00pm San Francisco time to some very happy parents, but 1:00am Dublin time!!!

Here's the first sign that it might be a long day!

"Sadie, we know it's 5am, what do you mean you're still sleeping?"

Excited to come home!

VOENA London/Dublin Trip - Day 8!! Last Day in Ireland!!

Today we visited Beaumont Hospital, which was wonderful and moving. Annabelle's thoughts:

Today we sang for the hospital's 25th Anniversary. There were some amazing stories told that brought many of us to tears, including me. One was a man who donated his kidney to his mother. Another was a woman who, at 17, discovered she had a condition that eventually left her blind and then deaf. She had to give her kids up but then got her kids back after a successful cochlear implant. The last story was a young adult girl who went through two brain surgeries and broke into tears with appreciation for her ability to even have life. VOENA children were chosen to give bouquets of flowers and a special small group of our little girls got their faces painted and were then escorted to the children's ward for a picture of hospital promotion.

Thank you Annabelle!

Podcast from the Beaumont 25th Anniversary Celebration including interview with Annabelle and performance by VOENA:

http://nearpodcast.org/pcast/

At Beaumont:

Later, folks were on their own. Some decided to "go dancing":

VOENA members are so talented!

Others went shopping!

There were some birthday girls! Happy Birthday Reilly and Faith!

And Sadie found her knight in shining armor!! (Or armour, as they say in Ireland!)

Monday, July 30, 2012

VOENA London/Dublin Trip - Day 7!! Ireland!

A VERY busy day in Dublin, with performance stops at Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral - perfect acoustics for VOENA! Then on to a performance at the Artane School of Music! By all reports, the VOENA performers were professional troupers, putting up with exhausting travel schedules and wowing everyone who was lucky enough to see them, every step of the way!

A special, rare "listen" to the incredible sound:

(this photo courtesy of Go Inspire Go!)

Artane School of Music!

Later on, there was eating....and finally sleeping!

Sadie, looking happy but tired!

Nighty-night!

These photos were actually earlier, during the Dublin tour, sooooo tired!!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

VOENA London/Dublin Trip - Day 6! On to Ireland!!!

After a whirlwind tour in London, we're off to Ireland!! A blog update from Annabelle:

"Just got to Dublin and are checking in to the hotel. Jeff Campitelli flew out of the Olympic performance yesterday before he could finish two songs to end our performance, jumped into a car, zoomed to the airport and got on a plane just in time to perform with Joe Satriani in Geneva! Then he slept 6 hours, got on another plane this morning and flew to Dublin to meet us as we got off the ferry!

We sang on the ferry as the people were getting ready to deboard and I figured that the hustle and bustle would be too much for VOENA to be heard but we attempted and you should have heard the hush come over the people! All of a sudden as we are stomping out Kinderly, cameras and phones are popping out all around and above us from the upstairs area. When VOR broke into their 'Drum War' the crowd roared with delight! Jeff already checked out some local pubs to find which ones will allow children so we can catch some local music and what else....but bring our own music!!! He found one just down the street from our hotel that is open until 1am and says 'BRING THE KIDS, NO PROBLEM' in `Irish brogue'!"

Here's a capture of that moment on the ferry:

More ferry pics!

We always knew the end of the rainbow must be in Ireland!!

From Annabelle: "Birds eye view en route to hotel in Dublin"

Video!!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

VOENA London Trip - Day 5! Olympic Park, Main Stage!!

Very exciting, an opportunity to perform inside Olympic Park, at the MAIN STAGE!!!

Before we get started with that, we have received a blog post from Annabelle!!! Cell phone and email reception have been somewhat challenging, so here she covers several days of the trip, leading up to yesterday:

I know it's been FOREVER!!! You cant believe the fever of OLYMPICS! The city is buzzing with Olympians wearing their country logos and we even walked into the swimmers from Australia doing their poses in swimsuits against the parliament backdrop!

The torch passing yesterday morning was one of those moments we felt history passing before VOENA as the squad of police cars followed by The British cyclist winner of the Tour de France. Tears rolling down parents faces! Everyone (which means the parents haha) were yelling for that "cyclist" to get out of way of pictures of VOENA and the TORCH! They had no idea until they saw him on the Opening Ceremonies tonight!!!

Last night was the first performance of its kind with Mediaeval Baebes in the cathedral sounds of St John at Hackney! When VOENA joined them in rehearsal, the Baebes went into awe and gasps of joy from the blend of sound! Breath taking sound! The Baebes performed in new gowns and VOENA performed in silk wings decorated with Gaelic and Medieval jewelry which made the Baebes filled with envy (little did they realize that we were ready to gift them these handmade necklaces by our own costume director, Diana Braulik). Katharine Blake, the Baebes founder and composer, lifted her hand high in the air to cut the last chords of voices so that the sound would parachute up to the ceiling and explode all around the audience! Again, tears were rolling!

Today, some of us managed to get to Millenium Bridge and the London Tower to see the incredible Olympic rings hanging from the bridge amidst crowds and crowds of people divided only by languages of their countries. Our day continued with a performance at Central Hall Westminster with a fantastic meet and greet with performers from Beijing and Saipan. Acrobatic moves from Beijing male performers inspired my own son, Dominic Cruz (Voena alumni), to break into handstands and backflips during our picture time. Dominic couldn't help himself and hey, he's my son, so I couldn't help but intersect a cart wheel on the stage! We started a domino effect that infected the other performing groups with Westminster organizers shaking their head (and not up and down). We were definitely NOT English proper! I should have gone to have High tea to calm my excitement!

Tomorrow the Olympics performance!!

Annabelle

What a great update!!! And now, on to the photos!!