The little village of Niederfrohna

Every choir tour seems to have one day or event that is the highlight of the trip. For us, that event happened on Wednesday.

After a sobering visit to the Buchenwald Memorial in the morning, followed by a 2-hour lunch break in Weimar, we headed off to a little place none of us had ever heard of called Niederfrohna. We arrived in the village around 3:00 p.m. and were met by an enthusiastic group of people wielding cameras and welcoming us with open arms. The local press was there and even someone with a film camera. We were rather taken aback and joked amongst ourselves that they obviously didn't get a lot of visitors around here.

The head of the welcoming committee was a woman from the local Historical Society. She spoke a bit of English and was absolutely hilarious.

After taking pictures of us on the steps of the local Rathaus (town hall), she and the rest of the group lead us to a shady backyard and handed out cold beer and water. It was a very hot and humid day, about 34 degrees, so the cold drinks in the shade were very welcome.

At that point she asked if we knew why we were in this particular backyard and when we said, no, she proceeded to explain, and suddenly our warm welcome began to make sense.

In 1837, a group of people from Niederfrohna decided to immigrate to America, seeking religious freedom and better opportunities. Three of the people who immigrated were from a family by the name of Martin and had originally lived in the house where we were now sitting.

The group of immigrants eventually settled in Missouri where they established a town called Frohna and founded the Missouri Synod (for my non-Lutheran friends, the Missouri Synod is the most conservative/orthodox branch of Lutherans, known in Canada as Lutheran Church Canada. Concordia Univ. College is part of this denomination.) So our arrival in Niederfrohna was like a homecoming for the villagers.

Following a historical presentation, we were invited to have supper in the council chambers of the town hall together with the mayor, deputy mayor, the Lutheran pastor, and members of the historical society. They poured us glasses of champagne and toasted our arrival and then provided us with a light supper of open faced sandwiches and wurst.

Around 6:00, we changed into concert dress, a particular challenge given how hot and sticky we were. We had planned to do about a 45 minute warm up rehearsal, but by about 6:30 the church was beginning to fill up with eager audience members from the village and surrounding areas, so we cut our rehearsal short and just enjoyed the jovial atmosphere.

By 7:00 p.m. the church was packed, including the balcony. The pastor welcomed everyone and made some introductory remarks, including a description of the 1837 emigration and the subsequent return of the choir from Canada some 175 years later. Silvio, our tour guide, translated into English for our benefit. Special guests were introduced including the mayor, members of the historical society, and the superintendent of all the district Lutheran churches, who we found out later had once been voted funniest pastor in Germany. Although he spoke no English, he had us laughing out loud simply by his actions, including grooving along to the Spiritual song, Keep Your Lamps (Trimmed and Burning).

The church was absolutely sweltering and sweat was dripping from our faces as we sang, but it was the best concert of our entire trip.

There was more picture taking on the steps of the church after the concert. Each of us received a giftwrapped 2014 calendar of the town following the concert, and as we boarded the bus, they gave us all freshly printed copies of our picture taken in front of city hall, copies of a song that was composed by the immigrants as they sailed for America, including a CD of the song, and two copies of books of the town made for the 175th anniversary. We finally pulled away from the village to much handwaving and promises to visit again.

The little village of Niederfrohna, which none of us had heard of before, will undoubtedly be the most memorable part of our trip.

 

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