Early last Monday morning, a tired but happy group of singers, music staff and supporters arrived back in Leicester following a great week-long tour by the Cathedral choir to Truro. As well as singing almost daily services in Truro Cathedral, the group made the most of the time in Cornwall with a full programme of activities including visiting the Eden Project, (where they couldn’t resist a bit of impromptu singing) taking a boat to Trelissick, swimming, bowling and playing many games of table tennis and pool in whatever spare time could be found back at their base in Truro School where they were accommodated and fed well. All of the Leicester Cathedral choirs were represented on the tour with Boys, Junior Girls, Senior Girls, Young Songmen and some adult singers (including former choir members) all taking part.
Phil Leech, one of the adult singers who sang with the choir in Truro, said:
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The joy of a good choir is the sense of teamwork, working together to produce the best possible performance of whatever music is put in front of us. The particular skill of a Cathedral choir is the ability to learn a lot of music very quickly and bring it to performance standard on minimal rehearsal time. Our trip to Truro last week tested that skill, a challenge that I am pleased to say we rose to collectively. It was a delight to be singing in a space with such a positive acoustic. Once we had got used to the size of the building we found it allowed us to develop a very pleasingly blended sound and to be flexible and responsive to the needs of the music.”
17 year old Anna commented: “I enjoyed singing a range of music, some more challenging and some which I knew very well. I think it was a good balance that helped me to improve my singing overall across the week”, while James, aged 13, highlighted the social and team building aspects observing: “It was good to have a common room where we could get to know each other. The food was excellent and there was a good balance between singing and activities.”
The choir, which had an average age of 14, sang six Evensongs and a Eucharist in seven days.
Canon Emma Davies, Precentor at Leicester Cathedral, who joined the tour for its last few days paid tribute to the hard work that had enabled the tour to be such a success, commenting “Happy tours only happen following much planning and work – great thanks are due to our Cathedral Music staff, Chris, Rosie and David, to Yan who chaperoned and to Kez in the office for all they each contributed. I have no doubt that many great memories have been made and that we’ll all hear the difference in the voices of our choristers when the Autumn term starts again!”