Thursday 24th April
The choir met at the Northlink Ferry Terminal. Everyone was excited and keen to get on the boat, even those who thought they might be seasick! This was the first day of the trip but of course planning had started long beforehand. It all started back in September 2001 when the Edinburgh Academy String Orchestra held a workshop weekend in Shetland with young string players. Chat between Mr & Mrs Hayward (music teacher and accompanist, and director of the choir) and Dr Coad (head of music at the academy) lead to the idea of Capella going south to sing with the Edinburgh Academy Chamber Choir, Dr Coad being their organist. Months of fundraising and planning to place, and eventually there we were, ready to go.
The boat trip was quite non-eventful - enjoyable but quiet!
Friday 25th April
The choir departed the boat and got on the bus to go to Edinburgh. We arrived at the Eglinton Youth Hostel at approx. 1.30pm and gathered in one of the lounge rooms to eat lunch and have a quick rehearsal. After dropping suitcases to rooms we went to the Edinburgh Academy for a concert to an S2 class. It was highly tempting to take photos of the academy, as it was quite a beautiful building. As the academy has places for boys only from P1 - S4 (mixed nursery and S5-6), our group of 32 girls walking across the grounds caused some attention. The class we sung to listened politely, even if they didn't seem completely interested in what we were singing!
Afterwards we went to another part of the building for a rehearsal of a new song, which we were to sing with the Chamber Choir. This hall was being used for some sort of meal that night, and our audience was busy polishing wineglasses and holding them up to the light to check for any marks - this was definitely the oddest audience we had come across!
Then we went back to the youth hostel for dinner and to get ready to go out. All the S4 girls were in a room and had fun doing each other's hair in the corner known for the trip as "The Salon!" We were going to see one of the last performances of Beauty and the Beast at the Playhouse Theatre.
It was amazing, enchanting, wonderful; no one word could describe this in a way that would fully explain the experience!!!! Everyone enjoyed it tremendously! We had seats on the front row and could see (and speak to) the orchestra which was very interesting to watch, and highly inspiring for some of the musicians in the choir. The characters of the story were even more inspiring. This tour had run from 13th February and was ending on the next night, but every actor and actress made you feel it was happening for the first time (in a good way!). It was incredibly fresh, and the entire cast were as believable as beasts, "frustrated" candlesticks, talking clocks and dancing plates, not forgetting the singing teapot, can be! Belle, her father Maurice, Gaston, Lefou and the other unenchanted characters were also totally convincing in their roles. A true account of this show would not miss out Belle's singing voice - simply beautiful, and an inspiration to the choir!
Beauty and the Beast on tour had a few minor changes to the story and also a few more songs, but these were positive factors and everyone felt that this was the best experience of the trip.
Saturday 26th April
On Saturday morning we spent 2 hours at Megabowl, bowling and notably competing on the dance machines! Even Mrs Tait couldn't resist the a go! Later when everyone counted their money and wondered how they'd spent so much, the dance machines were the top culprits!
After lunch at McDonalds we went to Camera Obscura 
, next to
Edinburgh Castle. Camera Obscura has 3 floors of old photographic methods, and
3D, hologram, and illusional features. The 4th floor opens out to the rooftop
for views of Edinburgh, and then on the 5th floor you watch the Camera Obscura
show. This is a live panoramic view of Edinburgh, projected onto a curved dish.
The guide doing the show tells stories about Edinburgh's past and does some
tricks where it appears that they are lifting live, walking people up, and
putting buses on detours over bridges! Very amusing! Spending money really was
in the back of everyone's mind, and the gift shop had plenty to choose from!
Next it was back to the hostel for dinner and once more to get ready for going out. This time it was to Davidson's Mains Church where we were to do our second concert in the church room. This was a fairly small room, and it was quite hot and stuffy, only partly due to Dr Coad not knowing how to work the heaters! A combination of the heat, and tiredness from hardly stopping for two days caused one of the younger members of the choir to faint during The Beatles "With a little help from my Friends". She was in the middle of the middle row so the girls on the front row started turning around to see why someone was pushing on their chairs before the audience knew what had happened. We quickly finished the song and then Mrs Emptage, who was one of our leaders and also a nurse, came and took her into the corridor. She was ok after a minute or two, although the rest of us were a bit shaken for the rest of the concert. Thankfully a kind member of the audience took her and a couple of the leaders back to the hostel. When we finished the concert and returned to the hostel, we were given instructions to get to bed early and have a good night's sleep, as Sunday night was the most important concert. Most people were tired so it wasn't much to ask! However Saturday was the start of many coughs and sore throats from doing a much higher amount of singing than ever before.
Sunday 27th April
Sunday saw one of the S4s turn 16! She probably had one of
the most unusual birthdays any of Capella could report! We started the day with
a visit to Our Dynamic Earth. 
This is a journey through the time-line of the
world, including sections on different climates on Earth and a section on
weather. This was interesting but also relaxing as it didn't require much imput
and there wasn't too much walking or stairs to climb. One of the favourite
sections (not including the shop) was the Antarctic area, which featured a huge
lump of ice in the middle of the room.
We had lunch provided at Dynamic Earth and then went back to the hostel, yet again to get ready. Sunday was the big day when we would sing at St Giles Cathedral, on the Royal Mile. We had a rehearsal ourselves and then with the Edinburgh Academy Chamber Choir. It was amazing how different singing in a cathedral sounds to singing in the Sandwick J. H. S. social area, Clickimin Centre and even Lerwick Town Hall. The sound travelled really well and it was quite scary hearing the echo 2 - 4 seconds later! However, this did affect our confidence a bit, and some of the girls were impatient at Mr Backhouse, the conductor of the Chamber Choir who conducted 2 of the shared songs, when he seemed to treat us as though we didn't know what we were doing at all. This was unintentional, I'm sure, but it did create some unease among Capella. None the less, we all enjoyed singing with the Chamber Choir, and felt that our own performance was one of our best.
The concert we were featured in was part of the 'St Giles at 6' series and it attracted a large audience, which included past music teachers and Shetland folk living in Edinburgh. The buzz we got from singing in such a prestigious venue was apparent for days later!
Once the audience had begun to leave, some Capella girls took the opportunity to catch up with the double bassist from the Edinburgh Academy Strings orchestra who we had met back in 2001. He revealed that the group are planning another weekend in September 2003 so our string players have something to look forward to!
We had our photos taken on the steps outside St Giles Cathedral and then headed to Pizza Express. This was a welcome change to the food at the youth hostel, and also a birthday celebration. Mr Wishart proved he wasn't a boring headteacher (not that any of us thought so in the first place!) by agreeing to subtly try to include 1 particular waiter in some of the filming of our meal! Several Capella members probably scared the poor waiter by getting our waitress to take a photo of him with someone's camera! Before we left we had a request to sing something to the staff and remaining few customers. We chose 'Yesterday' by The Beatles and had a good response.
Monday 28th April
Monday woke uneasily for most of the S4s, as 1 of the girls collapsed breathlessly when she got out of her bed. Everyone but 2 had been asleep but that changed when the 2 that were awake saw what had happened. Mrs Emptage was once more sent for and thankfully everything was ok after a short while. This was not the only episode of illness on the trip (not including sore throats and coughs). As well as the girl fainting, there were cases of temperatures and mild flu-like symptoms. Despite all this, breakfast was eaten, suitcases were packed, and everyone was on the bus almost 15 minutes earlier than indicated on the itinerary - the first time we were early! Once more the thought of shopping was controlling everyone and we got to rainy Aberdeen with the whole afternoon to do some! On the bus we made a collection for the bus driver and this was passed on with a hearty rendition of "Hail to the bus driver."
At 5.30pm our group of tired and damp, but happy, shoppers returned to Northlink and boarded the boat. At dinner onboard, the leaders were presented with gifts bought by the S5s with a collection from the choir. These were as follows:
- Mrs Hayward: Body Shop Pack
- Mr Hayward: Daffy Duck Tie
- Mr Wishart: Tie
- Mrs Tait: Body Shop Pack
- Mrs Emptage: Body Shop Pack
Straight after that there was an announcement on the Hrossey's tannoy saying that the wind was due to rise to gale force 8 when we were nearing Shetland, and before you knew it, most of the choir had disappeared off to bed! Your author was asleep by 8pm so no further report of this trip is available!
Tuesday 29th April
Despite some Capella girls sleeping 10 hours on the boat, it was a bleary-eyed and coughing group of girls who arrived home in Shetland. At the time of the trip there were plans for Capella to become Shetland Youth Choir with members from all over Shetland. This idea was met with quite a lot of negativity, so we were quite sad at the end of the trip, because at the time it would have been the only trip with Capella as it is. At the same time though, we were pleased to have had such a wonderful weekend.
However, since the trip these plans have been put off for a year, and there are ideas for more Capella trips. If prospective trips have as much fun combined with such success, I'm sure they will be enjoyed and remembered as much as the Edinburgh Trip!
By Hannah
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