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Choir Tour: 1994 Scotland/England
Overview - Itinerary

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Stonehenge

Warwick Castle

Royal Albert Hall

In the summer of 1994, the San Diego Children's Choir conducted its first International Tour. Fifty children embarked on an exciting singing and cultural adventure to Great Britain, visiting and singing in Edinburgh, York, Stratford, Ludlow, Winchester, and London. Highlights included an enthusiastic reception of their concert at the Ludlow Music Festival and participation in "Carmina Burana" performed under the direction of Sir David Willcocks in Royal Albert Hall, London. Homestays and sightseeing rounded out this first-time experience for the 10 to 14-year old singers.

A detailed description of the tour can be found in this excellent write-up by Kenneth Herman, Tour Accompanist.

Great Britain Concert Tour
By Ken Herman

We were climbing through the graceful arches of the splendid 12th-century monastery ruin of Jedburgh in southern Scotland when a group of choristers spontaneously broke into Orlando DiLasso's Latin motet "Cor Meum." It was this magical moment that demonstrated how profoundly the 50 young singers of the San Diego Children's Choir Great Britain tour understood the nature of their two-week musical journey. They were encountering firsthand a culture and a people most knew only through music and study. At Jedburgh the connection between the monastery chapel and the Latin motets they had learned became tangible.

Under the direction of Polly Campbell, the touring choir gave as well as received. They performed seven formal concerts, two with host English choirs, from Edinburgh to London. We had barely recovered from jetlag when we gave a noontime concert of sacred music in Edinburgh's High Kirk of St. Giles, Scotland's historic national cathedral. The next evening we sang to a warmly receptive audience (and a full house) at the Nicolson Square Methodist Church in downtown Edinburgh. We learned that the concert there had been well publicized, including radio advertising.

The choir gave its best performance at the Ludlow Arts Festival in the village of Ludlow, not far from the Welsh border. Sandwiched between the festival's productions of Shakespeare, opera and chamber music, our choral concert must have appeared as a curiosity: an American choir singing on July 4th, America's Independence Day. But the choir's superb music-making and Polly Campbell's breadth of programming quite astonished the standing-room-only crowd at St. Peter's Church. In part the church's clear, resonant acoustics encouraged beautiful singing, but the intensity of musical communication came from the performers themselves.

Another memorable concert was an afternoon recital at Winchester Cathedral. After a morning rehearsal in the stately medieval cathedral, we took a lunch break which also allowed us to watch the Tour de France cycle through the cordoned-off center of town. Because the cyclists whizzed past in about the time it takes to sing an English madrigal, many tourists and cycle enthusiasts were left with an afternoon to fill. Fortunately, many of them attended our cathedral concert. Again the wonderful acoustics of the cathedral nave and the appropriateness of the sacred music in that historic place brought out the best in the singers.

Several informal performances also gave the tour its special character: singing "Shenandoah" for the Lord Provost of Edinburgh in the City Chambers; singing madrigals in the rain standing in front of Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford; and serenading on the lawn of Warwick Castle at the invitation of the castle's costumed troubadours. It should be noted that the children themselves organized the impromptu singing at the castle, a sign of their great enthusiasm for singing together.

The tour was not just performance, however. Singers and chaperones made friends with their generous hosts in York and Winchester who not only provided comfortable beds and hearty lunches, but also gave us a glimpse of family life in Great Britain. We climbed on the foundation walls of the Norman fortress that is called Old Sarum and wondered at the ancient mystery of Stonehenge. We saw the crown jewels in the Tower of London and shopped for souvenirs at the markets of Covent Garden.

The tour's climax took place in Royal Albert Hall, a magnificent 19th-Century concert hall in London's Kensington district. Under the direction of Sir David Willcox, the San Diego Children's Choir joined the English Festival Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Carl Orff's challenging contemporary opus with crisp diction and sterling tone. They gave Sir David everything he asked for, and, during the long ovation at the work's conclusion, England's most respected choral conductor strode back to congratulate Polly Campbell (our choir was placed directly behind the orchestra) for her excellent work. The performance was a musical high few of us will forget.