My host cycled with me to today's rehearsal in a school in Leiden. The 90-strong choir from Bonn was arriving by coach around the same time as we did: about 65 pupils and 25 adults. I've got to know the leaders of the Bonn school choir and the Leiden Youth Orchestra moderately well over the years, but of course the children who come each time are different. Whereas our choir is the same people, just gradually getting older.

Mark, leading the Leiden Youth Orchestra and conducting us all, has just the right balance of demanding where we can do better and accepting where we can't. The rehearsal lasted all day, with the long breaks that adolescents need to let off steam, and by the end I knew we had improved and were pulling together better.


Yesterday: Water Music