Posted on September 27, 2011

I had a lovely 2 weeks trip! The journey from Buenos Aires to Plovdiv, Bulgaria was REALLY long. It seemed eternal actually, but finally I found the bed in my beautiful hotel room and got some sleep. The rehearsals with the Plovdiv philharmonic orchestra and choir begun the following day.

I had been totally excited about our “Beauty and the Beat” concert for several weeks and when it was the time for the real thing, it felt awesome. Both Mike and me had been practising a lot for this event on our own.

The heat in the rehearsal hall rose to it’s maximum at times in the room, so it was not easy for anybody to stay there for several hours. Everybody handled it very well and the mood was great. Actually the Plovdiv Philharmonic orchestra is one of the best orchestras I had been working with so far in my career. They really pulled this program through very well, with the amazingly great attitude and talent. I truly appreciate it. With the help of the conductor Levon Manukyan, we managed to get everything together and in time for the actual concert.

Have you seen pictures from the beautiful amphitheatre?

My God it’s an amazing location!!!!!!! I walked through the stage a night before the concert and wondered how it might look and feel when the place would be packed with people. I was so wrong! It was nothing like I expected actually. IT WAS SO BRILLIANT!

When the concert was about to start, I heard the screams from the Bulgarian audience and remembered of my previous visits to Bulgaria. All of my concerts there have been amazing due to the magnificent reception of the people. Now they were about to hear something totally different from me, so I got nervous.

When I walked to the stage, the audience was so loud that I got pretty confused with my thoughts and emotions, so I burst into tears even before singing a note! It was wonderful. The whole concert was wonderful. I was very, very happy. The whole idea of performing together with the orchestra, choir and Mike is very unique and I knew that this concept would work live, as it did. We hope that we can do this more often and it could happen wherever!

I needed to hug Mr. Terrana a loooooong time before and after the concert. Actually Mike enjoyed the concert so much that he told me afterwards this: “Dear Tarja, if I should die tomorrow, I would die happily“. It was the best concert he said he had done in his career so far. I was VERY happy to be a part of that.

I want to thank the city of Plovdiv for having me. Next time Bulgaria will see me in my last tour in Sofia Jeeeeee….
Day after this overwhelming experience, I was already on my way to Brazil where another exciting event was about to happen.
The jet lag was killing me already when I arrived to sunny Rio de Janeiro, but despite of it, I wanted to feel the breeze of the ocean and enjoy a bit of my “free” time.
I met all Angra guys next day in the rehearsals. I must say that they really practise very loud! Without earplugs, you wouldn’t be able to stay in that room for very long…WOW  

Everything went fine and we went through the songs for few times and had fun. It was really nice to get to know the members of Angra better in these couple of days. They were very kind to me.
We were supposed to have a sound check very early in the morning of the show day, but due to some technical problems on the festival, it got very delayed. We ended up having barely a line check. That is just to check that all the instruments are plugged and “working”, even though not sounding good enough for a show. Well, everybody was a bit pissed and nervous about this situation, but we all thought that it would get solved in the evening. We still had high hopes and good laughs!
Show time in the famous Rock in Rio! I felt very honoured to take part of this festival as a guest of a local band. Last time this festival was held in Rio 10 years ago and I had always dreamed to be able to sing on this event one day.
Even when you are professional, sometimes things are just out of your control. It was a mess. Unfortunately, there were too many technical issues happening during the show that it was barely possible to perform. I couldn’t hear the guitars and keyboards. I had no idea in which key the band was playing some of the songs, so I needed to just guess and pray that I hit the notes correctly. What of course, I didn’t !!!!!!!!! :( I wish that we could repeat all of it again with the band someday.

Anyway, I have to say that Angra and I we did the best we could in this situation and we tried to enjoy the performance despite the problems. The audience in Rio was just amazing. I saw many girls crying in front of me and those tears ended up in the cover story of a local newspaper too! It was so thrilling to rock in front of that mass of people!!!! It had been too long since. I want to thank you all for having me in Rock in Rio. I had a great time there with Angra and with you.

THANK YOU BRAZIL!!!!!!! I am looking forward to see you again next year in March.
Now I will enjoy my home for some time.
I will let you know about my plans soon 

With love, Tarja