Yesterday was a travel day, always an ordeal no matter the distance. Our objective was to fly from Copenhagen to London Heathrow, then use the Elizabeth train line to reach Kings Cross, from where we could take a National Rail train to Cambridge. Once we reached the Cambridge rail station we could take a taxi to our hotel. Sounds straightforward enough, but when you are hauling heavy luggage, plus a too heavy backpack plus a heavy purse, it’s too much! Thank goodness there are now lifts (elevators) in nearly every train station so we didn’t have to always schlep our bags on the stairs.

But … we survived, and we had a lovely breakfast this morning at The Cambridge Oven, where we ate the best and flakiest strawberry rhubarb danish I have ever had. The pastry had the lightness and crispiness of the best French croissant! Yummy!

The one activity we had booked beforehand was a walking tour of Cambridge University, supposedly with a student guide. However, when we met our guide, Renee, she said that students are not allowed to work, and since she has just graduated, she’s now eligible. She said she’s from Hong Kong, and her area of study was Spanish and Latin! Although she had only been on the job for two weeks, she was a wealth of information and humor.

Here are some of the buildings and sights we were shown on the tour.

The crown jewel, of course, was King’s College Chapel where I have visited twice for Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols in 1992 and 1999. My visit today brought back memories of “standing in the queue” to enter the Chapel for this beloved service — and I remember it being extremely cold with ice on the ground! Unfortunately the school term is now over and we won’t hear live music in here for this visit.

I explained to Bill Potter that it is the fan-vaulted ceiling here which makes choral music in this building just blossom and soar! The Harrison & Harrison organ was recently refurbished in 2016.

We had seen a poster for Evensong at St. Botolph’s at 4:00 pm, so after a short rest at the hotel, we came back to hear a visiting choir from St. John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong. Although they certainly weren’t King’s College Choir, they were certainly respectable.

When we were checking into the hotel last night, by chance I happened to pick up a brochure, “Cambridge Summer Music Festival, 3-31 July 2024, and quickly scanned it to check for any concerts during our stay. I was thrilled to see a concert by the Gesualdo Six on July 24, at Our Lady and the English Martyrs Catholic Church just down the street from our hotel, and quickly booked our tickets. Tonight we heard “this award-winning British vocal ensemble comprising some of the UK’s finest consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Praised for their imaginative programming and impeccable blend, the ensemble formed in 2014 for a performance of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories in Cambridge and has gone on to perform at numerous major festivals across the UK, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.“

Members of the group are: Owain Park, director; Guy James, countertenor; Alasdair Austin, countertenor; Joseph Wicks, tenor; Josh Cooter, tenor; and Michael Craddock, baritone. Their voices were superbly matched to each other and perfectly blended.

This group was absolutely fantastic, absolutely sublime in a program of Antoine Brumel, Heinrich Isaac, Jean Mouton, Josequin des Prez, Pierre de la Rue, Loyset Compère, Constanzo Festa, and Carlo Gesualdo. They ended the program with a commissioned piece by Shruthi Rajasekar (b. 1996), and for an encore, sang “O nata lux” by Thomas Tallis.

I have to be honest — the countertenor voices reminded me so much of Carl Crosier’s flute-y voice and I thought a lot about him tonight during the concert.

As we were leaving the concert, you’ll never guess who we ran into — Simon Crookall and Stephen Strugnell, formerly of Honolulu, Hawaii! Simon used to be the director of Hawaii Opera Theatre, and Stephen played the organ at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church. And if Bill had not insisted that I go to the front to take a picture of the organ, we might not have run into each other!

Small world, indeed!