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Hunter Singers has returned from a very successful tour to England, Belgium and France. There were 29 singers aged 13-18 on tour, representing nine government high schools in the Hunter region. Maitland Grossmann had the largest school group, with 14 travellers: Isabella Hingston, Emile Noronha, Ella Waight, Penny McDonald, Jessica Paul, Alice Bloomfield, Maddy Clayden, Cathy Clunies-Ross, Candice Minto, Kathryn Notley, Lachlan Peacock, Stephanie Tuyl, Ashleigh Henry and Jenna Matthews.

 

The tour had four components: a 5-day festival in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, performances in the great cathedrals of England, a 3-day tour of the battlefields of Flanders and the Somme and 5 days in Paris, with performances at Disneyland and La Madeleine.

 

There were many highlights, with moving performances in acoustics Australian choirs don’t normally experience. A particular highlight was the concert in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. The chapel has a renowned acoustic with a 7-second delay. John Rutter has recorded in this venue with the Cambridge Singers. The young singers had to produce a very focused sound in order to take full advantage of the acoustics. The result was spectacular, with many singers and audience members moved to tears by the beauty of the sound. A retired choral director from Florida commented that he had never heard a sound like it in over 60 years of involvement with choral music.

 

The Last Post Ceremony at Menin Gate, Ypres was an occasion to remember. Held every night since 1927, the traffic stops and crowds gather for the playing of the Last Post and a wreath-laying ceremony. Hunter Singers performed the Paul Jarman work we commissioned, Known Unto God, with the composer present, along with works by Stephen Leek. The performance was especially memorable as Prince Edward was presiding and there was a much larger crowd than usual as it was the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

 

The three days touring the Western Front were incredible as 18 people on our tour found relatives' graves, thanks to the research the singers had done before the trip. We had a small ceremony for each, with one of the singers playing the Last Post. We also had an impromptu ceremony at Tyne Cot, along with a busload of British D-Day veterans. Their tour guide said to me: “We’ve got a bugler and a standard-bearer, you’ve got a choir and a song. We should get together at Tyne Cot!”.

 

The concert at Villers-Bretonneux was a very moving experience, with a large crowd of villagers very appreciative of the mostly Australian repertoire. The playground of the school in Villers-Bretonneux has a huge sign in English: DO NOT FORGET AUSTRALIA. The hall we performed in, Victoria Hall, has landscape paintings of Victorian scenes such as the Great Ocean Road, and wooden carvings of Australian animals! The Australian flag flies from the Town Hall. There is no doubt that our Australian soldiers are remembered and recognised for their sacrifice. The whole experience was so moving and it is great to see that teenage children can be so moved by what they had seen in the battlefields. It was wonderful to finish the tour in Paris. The singers had great fun navigating their way around the Metro in small groups accompanied by an adult. They all saw at least one gallery and in addition chose between Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Sainte Chappell, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Galeries Lafayette, the Pantheon and many other places. There are so many highlights in Paris.

 

The performance in La Madeleine was a spectacular finale as the singers put into practice all that they had learnt about producing a clean, focused sound through all the delay and reverb in the vast space. We drew a huge crowd as the concert progressed, especially when we sang Australian repertoire such as Stephen Leek’s Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Kondalilla, Sarah Hopkins’s Past Life Melodies and Paul Jarman’s Known Unto God.

 

All in all a great tour with some wonderful young Australian ambassadors from public schools.