Rufino García only knows Rome through NO-DO and the movies.
Rufino is 80 years old and is located behind the choir of Fuentearmegil (Soria, 150 inhabitants) not because he is naughty, that too, but for musical reasons.
The seven men are located behind the 14 women of this amateur choir, used to performing in Soria towns and which this Sunday has the great concert of their lives: singing in the Vatican.
The director of the choir, Héctor Gómez, has obtained an invitation to perform in the Holy See and exchange the Soria churches for papal instances.
His veteran singers, some of whom have never taken a plane or left Spain, look forward to this challenge with childlike enthusiasm.
The songs have united people who are victims of rural loneliness, entertained in rehearsals and performances, given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in a place unimaginable when they began to sing.
“Let's say a hallelujah!” exclaims Gómez, 54, an adult educator with the ease of many years of experience in the province of Soria.
The director waves his arms as if he were scaring away a warlike swarm and the band modulates their voices and timbres to the sound of an imaginary baton.
The man sports long, gray hair and is wearing a Motörhead t-shirt, although the feat of taking his children to the domain of Pope Francis makes it even more difficult.
Rehearsal of the Fuentearmegil Choir, in Soria.Samuel Sánchez
“Rufino, don't be a hooligan!” says the boss, while recounting an adventure that began almost a year ago, when he said to himself: “I have to take my kids here [whispers break out, pleased to take decades off their shoulders].”
The procedures took shape and in October they found out the date: Sunday, February 11.
For this reason, they have multiplied the rehearsals, up to three a week compared to the usual one or two, and some nerves are triggered among the entourage, accustomed to religious music, Christmas carols and traditional songs.
The group knows how to sing in Latin, Hebrew, German, Italian, English, Catalan, Galician and Basque and has nine members from Fuentearmegil and another six from the area, so they have recruited some more singers from nearby towns to have enough troops .
Gómez created this choir and the one in Alcubilla de Avellaneda 10 years ago, but the coronavirus caused some casualties and serious consequences in people from the latter and only the one in this town remains active.
The band, which rehearses in schools that have been disused for decades, is made up of people between 45 and 84 years old, with José Ángel Esteban as the youngest.
“This is the host,” he proclaims.
The tallest, Consuelo Encabo, sings firmly because “in my house they have been musicians.”
As a young girl, she sang and played the accordion.
“My son plays a little bit of everything... well he won't know anything about it,” she says with the eternal resignation of Soria in the face of laughter in the room, where they do praise the son's artistic ability.
She will not travel because she has to take care of her husband, who is dependent on her.
Rufino takes the floor to value the efforts of Héctor Gómez.
“He is hard on us, but we will have to give him thanks, we dream of meeting the Pope,” the man from Soriano thanks and threatens, forgetting for a moment the ravages of osteoporosis.
The training progresses between osanas in heaven, Lord have mercy and popular folklores such as La torre de mi pueblo, una jota, who knows if Francisco likes it.
The evening sun appears through the windows and dyes Santos Izquierdo, 67, golden, like an enlightened person on whom heavenly music works miracles: neither the sonotone of his left ear nor his stuttering prevent him from succeeding as a baritone.
The coryphaeus explains that the dysphemia is found in another part of the brain and that it does not affect singing.
The aforementioned wears a suit because he dresses up for rehearsals and will be one of the three people from Soria who will take advantage of the opportunity to get to know the foreigner.
It's never too late.
Seven men and 14 women make up the Fuentearmegil Choir, in Soria.Samuel Sánchez
The choir nostalgically recounts their musical resumes.
Fermín Cabrerizo has been singing since he was six years old and his greatest feat is to do it at the Midnight Mass in the cathedral of Valladolid;
Maribel Pascual lived in Barcelona and there she sang at 15 until, back in Soria, she launched into it: “I was a little embarrassed, but I had the bug.”
The complicity of the group and Gómez's direction fuels spirits in towns in serious danger of depopulation, very old and with few options for active leisure for the elderly beyond these rehearsals and the subsequent picnics.
María García, 74, travels from Langa de Duero along a road with landscapes that are as spectacular by day as they are terrifying at night, with dense fog and no coverage: “Any day if something happens to me, the foxes will eat me!”
Every effort pays off when they get together, talk about their things, tease their colleagues and raise their voices with the Holy See as their next destination.
The appointment ends with advice from Héctor Gómez especially aimed at airplane novices.
He first describes how to pack your suitcase—The flood is going to fall, I'm telling you!—And then he instructs you about airport robberies: “You have to bring a ham sandwich from home, which costs 12 euros there.”
His pupils nod as he tells them how to carry a bottle of water to get through the terminal checkpoint.
Until this Sunday, the only coincidence in recent decades between the Vatican and Fuentearmegil has been the number of births.
In Rome, by faith;
in Soria, due to the lack of faith in rural life.
Sheet music for 'Lord have mercy', by the Fuentearmegil Choir.Samuel Sánchez
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