THE CHORUS OF WESTERLY - TOUR OF FRANCE & ENGLAND
July 4, 2024 – July 16, 2024

Performances
MOZART MASS IN C MINOR
Sun, July 7, 9 pm  - Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France
Mon, July 8, 9 pm - St Étienne du Mont, Paris, France
Fri, July 12, 7:30 pm - Worcester Cathedral, England

SUMMER CHORAL SPECTACULAR 
BRISTOL HALL OF THE BRISTOL BEACON, BRISTOL, ENGLAND
The Chorus of Westerly, The City of Bristol Choir
The Bath Philharmonia
Mozart – Mass in C Minor
Rutter – Gloria
And other works

Services
Wed, July 10, 3 pm - The Chorus sang at a
Remembrance and Wreath Ceremony at the 
Normandy American Cemetery,
above Omaha Beach, Colleville-sur-Mer, France

Mon, July 15, 5:15 pm -  The Chorus sang Evensong at 
Saint George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England

Read the Press Release that announced the Tour below:

THE CHORUS OF WESTERLY TO TOUR FRANCE & ENGLAND

TOUR BEGINS JULY 4

 

WESTERLY, RI – After nearly five years of planning, The Chorus of Westerly – one of southern New England's most celebrated arts organizations – will embark Thursday, July 4th on a 12-day tour to France and England. The tour will be the Chorus's sixth international concert tour.

The Chorus's 2024 tour, which will begin in Paris and end in London, will feature major performances of Mozart's Mass in C Minor as part of concerts in Chartres Cathedral, St-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, Worcester Cathedral, and the new Bristol Concert Hall in Bristol, England. Additionally, the Chorus will sing as part of a special remembrance and wreath-laying ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer at Omaha Beach, and in a service of Evensong at the Royal Chapel of Saint George, Windsor Castle. The tour will include 125 singers from the Chorus of Westerly along with about 90 followers - friends and family of the ensemble -who will travel with the Chorus to each destination. Tour participants come from over 30 different cities and towns in Rhode Island, southeastern Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts.

 

The sixth tour in the acclaimed ensemble's history, this particular voyage will mark the Chorus's first ever stop in France. In past years, the Chorus had made several attempts to plan and undertake a tour to France, including as far back as 2001, but a variety of circumstances forced each of those plans to be put on hold.

Indeed, the original plans for the coming 2024 tour to France and England, are modified tour plans from several years ago.

After the Chorus returned from its fifth international tour - to Germany - in the summer of 2017, Chorus leadership immediately began discussions on the next tour, this one at long last to France. In late 2019, the Chorus of Westerly Board of Directors approved said tour and scheduled it for July of 2021. However, mere weeks after the decision to engage the tour was approved, the Covid-19 pandemic emerged. By May of 2020, the France Tour was officially called off for obvious reasons. And, with the nebulous future of how the pandemic would unfold at the time - especially in regards to the act of singing and Covid - it was not clear when or if any future tour could take place.

As the Covid-19 situation and related travel restrictions eased a bit in late 2022, Chorus directors Ryan Saunders and Andrew Howell began working again alongside their travel  partners, ACFEA Tour Consultants, on the possibilities of resurrecting the France Tour plan for summer of July 2024. After surveying the Chorus singers, the desire to tour remained high and plans were put back into motion. However, one unique challenge emerged for touring with 200+ people to France in July of 2024: the Paris Summer Olympics.
 

While the Olympics begin towards the end of July and are based in Paris, the reality of the situation is that Olympics personnel arrive and logistics begin over a month ahead. Additionally, Olympics activity is not just in Paris, it is spread throughout France in other venues and cities (in nearly all of the locations where the Chorus was planning to be based). Hotels, coach buses, group restaurants, everything the Chorus needs to function on the tour, were already booked and very limited. Due to its seasonal schedule of events and involvement of children and teens in its singing ranks - nearly 40 Chorus children/teens are participating on the tour - the month of July is the only time the Chorus can tour. As such the decision was made to amend the plans to accommodate the olympic-sized complication.

 

The new tour plan would keep the Chorus in France for one week followed by one week in England, a country critically important in the Chorus's history. To begin the tour, the Chorus will fly into Paris for a four-night residency to begin and partner in performances with the Parisian orchestra, Orchestre Colonne. The first concert will be in the stunning Chartres Cathedral on July 7th followed the next night by a repeat performance in Paris's St-Étienne-du-Mont, the famous church of the later composer Maurice Duruflé. After leaving Paris, the Chorus will head to Normandy. On July 10th, the Chorus will sing as part of a remembrance and wreath laying ceremony at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer at Omaha Beach as part of the ongoing events this summer honoring the 80th anniversary of D-Day in 1944.

 

From Normandy, the Chorus will travel by ferry across the English Channel to Portsmouth, England, and trek onwards to Bath. Performance highlights in England include a performance of the Mozart Mass in C Minor in Worcester Cathedral - home of this year's Three Choirs Festival - followed the next night by a grand performance in the renovated Bristol Beacon Concert Hall in Bristol. This concert will see the Chorus partner with the City of Bristol Choir and the Bath Philharmonia in a huge performance featuring over 350 combined performers. The Chorus will end the tour in London. The final event will be a regal one, singing a service of Evensong in the Royal Chapel of Saint George's, Windsor Castle. 

 

Two previous concert tours of the Chorus of Westerly have visited Great Britain - a tour of England and Scotland in 1981 and a tour to England and Wales in 1995. Beyond its stops to the British Isles, the Chorus tour Italy in 1987, Austria, Czechia, and Hungary in 2014, and Germany in 2017.

 

For those in Europe, the Chartres (Sunday, July 7, 9 pm) and Paris concerts (Monday, July 8, 9 pm) are free and no tickets are required. The American Cemetery appearance, at 3 pm on July 10, is also free and open to all. The Evensong on Monday, July 15, 5:15 pm at Windsor is also free. The concerts at Worcester Cathedral on Friday, July 12, 7:30 pm and the Bristol Beacon on Saturday, July 13, 7:30 pm require tickets and information on tickets can be found on the Chorus's website or tickets can be purchased at the venue.

 

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Contact: Ryan Saunders, 508.561.6983

ryan@chorusofwesterly.org
The Chorus of Westerly

119 High St

Westerly, RI 02891