Choir Tour to Belgium

‘Heaven is eternal music. Thank you for being our angels today’
Thus spoke the Canon Pastor of Antwerp Cathedral who was presiding at last Sunday’s Mass in the cathedral, a service for which we sang the Widor Mass. We’re just back from a wonderful tour to Belgium and Mechelen and here follows a few highlights.
 
18 boys and 18 adults (including Canon Jo, Dr Price, Lay Clerks, Scholars and 3 Matrons) departed for St Pancras International last Friday 23 May. Our mix of Jet Blue and Navy Blue choir tour hoodies were easy to safely track our procession across the busy London station to board Eurostar to Brussels. We arrived in no time at all and grabbed pizza and ice cream before catching our next train to Antwerp itself. A quick hop onto the metro and we were at our smart hostel and settled in. On Saturday we had a superb morning at Antwerp Zoo – a spacious animal park with elephants, rhinos, an aquarium, meercats, gorillas and monkeys – though the choristers and scholars almost out-matched the latter’s dexterity in the children’s play zone monkey bars and treehouse!

After lunch we met up with Sub-Organist Mr Gunga and walked to our first venue, Sint Walburg’s, to rehearse for our evening concert. Our 8pm concert was enjoyed by a warm and enthusiastic audience who were treated to music by Byrd, Amner, Purcell, Parsons, Mendelssohn, MacDonald and Parry plus two encores! You can read a review here. We were up bright and early to rehearse at Antwerp Cathedral where we were able to sing the Widor Mass accompanied by their own Organist on the West Organ and Mr Gunga on the East End organ with us in between – a truly authentic and thrilling experience.
 
Then onto the train to Mechelen where we were to rehearse for a special evensong – but first a trip up the Cathedral West Tower – 538 steps for a view across all of Belgium. We sang Choral Evensong at 6pm to mark the 100th Anniversary of ‘The Malines Conversations’ – a set of conferences that were the first efforts at ecumenical relations between the Roman Catholic Church and The Church of England. A new Magnificat and Nunc dimittis – ‘The Latin Canticles’ Sorores in spe (sisters in hope) had been composed for the occasion by George Richford and sounded wonderful in the glorious cathedral space and virtuosic playing from Mr Gunga. A well-earned and hearty Italian meal straight afterwards with thanks to our inimitable and generous host Dirk who fixes all our Belgian tours, and then we were on our way back to Antwerp.

We were packed and ready early on Monday for a trip to Lier for a morning in Lago AquaPark and then the train to Brussels and on to St Pancras – one final set of walks and lugging of 30 sets of music and robes by the scholar and older boys but pleased in the knowledge too that our carbon footprint was 30% less than our last trip to Belgium.
 
Thank you to everyone who came – our choristers sang superbly and coped magnificently with the pace and energy required of them; our fabulous set of scholars who sang wonderful solos and helped look after the boys, our talented Lay Clerks and dextrous organists Mr Gunga and Mr Chin, Canons Jo and Angela for representing us all so well, and finally to Mrs Forder, Mrs Sewell and Sydney for ensuring the boys were cared for and made sure the tour ran smoothly.
 
Dr David Price
Organist & Master of the Choristers