Chapel Choir tour of Canada and USA

The Chapel Choir has had one of its most successful and enterprising years in recent times. As usual, the choir had a lot of interest for auditions, and after auditioning approximately four people for every one available space, we had our formed choir! Michaelmas term saw our usual round of weekly evensongs, as well as the beginning of our fundraising efforts for our mammoth tour to Canada and the USA in March/April 2017. In November, over the course of around 27 hours, the choir put on a Hymnathon to raise money for the tour, where we sang through the entire New English Hymnal, which was covered by local radio and press. The next month we put on a Christmas concert in the Dining Hall, where we performed some Christmas classics, including Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Christmas Carols with choir alumnus Tom Rowarth returning to sing the solo role. 

Epiphany term began with our annual trip to Ripon to sing Evensong, visiting our Director of Music emeritus Tom Coxhead who is currently organ scholar there. Later in term, we had our annual Reunion Weekend which had a record attendance; we had our wonderful black-tie dinner in college on the Saturday evening, followed by singing the morning services in the cathedral the next morning, which were well received. The rest of term was spent preparing for our tour.

The choir's ten-day tour to Canada and the US was the largest tour the choir had ever undertaken, and certainly the first one across the pond. We performed across eastern Canada and the USA, beginning in Halifax NS, then flying down to Albany NY, before returning into Canada for concerts and services in Port Hope ON and Toronto. All of our concerts received standing ovations, and we had enormous fun doing joint services with the cathedral choirs of Halifax and Toronto as well as the chapel choir of King's College, Halifax. We often stayed with host families, giving us an authentic experience of North American life, and we made many new friends along the way. It is safe to say that the tour was a resounding success, and that choir members are counting down the days until they next get to return to these two wonderful countries.