Concert in Rome - Part One!!!

 

OUR PERFORMANCE AT TEATRO MARCELLO

 

 

 

Unlike last year, this year we spent the first five days in an hotel downtown, right by the Teatro Marcello where we had our concert. This was special not only for the obvious reasons of being able to walk around Campo dei Fiori every morning to buy some fruits for lunch, or walk through the Ghetto to rehearse, or run to throw some coins in the Trevi Fountain between rehearsals, or learn where the best water fountains were, to name a few...but also because we managed to meet real Romans. We made friends with two very nice guys at the nearby cafe (obviously one of the best in Rome as it was the meeting point at mid morning for the nice old ladies, the garbage collectors, ...) where we were greeted each morning with "the usual"!

 

 

 

Also, and this was really special, we were allowed to practice in the nearby San Nicola in Carcere, where we became friends with these incredibly nice people who let us work there each day for an immense number of hours, even when the church was closed. So, we had our own personal and historical rehearsal church where our music was often met with applause by the tourists visiting the wonderful church.

 

 

  San Nicola in Carcere

As most of other Roman buildings, even this church was build on top of something else and recycling most of its materials: in this case, three temples from around the III and II Century BC, of which one can still clearly see the columns on the outside of the church and all the foundations, when visiting the crypt underneath (like we did, of course!). In the crypt, it is still very visible the path between these three temples and in particular the spaces where most likely the money exchange had his shop. The church is indeed close to the river and most of the goods from the empire would arrive to the Capital here and people would need to exchange their money...very much like us today!