Music tours

Top tips for first time tourers

Tim Knight

Composer and Choral Director

Tim has worked with choirs large and small and held posts with Wakefield Festival Chorus, Vocalis, The York Rose Singers, Thornton Vocal Union, and provided choral workshops for many other choirs and choral organisations. He also founded and runs two choirs based in Leeds: The Heritage Singers and Masterworks Chorale.

A veteran of music touring

Tim shares some of his music tour experiences and offers some tips for first time tour co-ordinators.

The immediate advantage is the excitement that builds up over a fair period of time; the sharpened sense of purpose in rehearsals, the almost holiday like atmosphere that takes over the choir. It bonds choir members and the travelling moulds them together. They make new friendships and become a stronger choir.

Absolutely, the choir becomes bigger than the individual singers and takes on a life of its own, so somehow it becomes your lifeblood and you live and breathe the last concert, hanging on its intimate memories, until it is overtaken by the pull of the next one. The music becomes etched in the choir’s consciousness in a way it never was before, and you strive to do it better each performance.

It was through word of mouth the first time, then talking to them at trade fairs after that.

Whether it’s a few days in your home country or two weeks overseas, going on tour is a wonderful and exciting experience. But it’s essential that the choir nominates one brave person to be the tour co-ordinator to liaise with the musical director, and the tour company. He/she is the person who supplies personal details in advance to hosts, carries them in the event of emergency, checks people on and off the coach etc.; they are the person in charge full stop. They also field all singers’ questions and forward them to the musical director. This leaves the musical details in the hands of the musical director, free of all other worries. (Tour Coordinator, Joanne Shaw, Masterworks Chorale).

Singing Rheinbergers Music in Vaduz, the city of his birth, in front of the Royalty of Liechtenstein; singing Fauré’s Requiem in the Madeleine to 400 people; singing in a tiny church in the outskirts of New York and being collected by the organisers in a Big Yellow American school bus in the thick snow; singing at the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot cemetery. I could go on, there are 25 years’ worth to bring to memory!

Tim’s top ten tips for first time leaders

Think where you want to go and your reason for going. Perhaps your destination will be determined by cost, or by a choir exchange, or by going somewhere that your town is twinned with. The possibilities are amazing!
The size of your choir will determine the cost; the type of music you sing will determine the venues.
Decide what you will sing. This will determine some of your venues because repertoire, especially in large European and American churches, needs to be vetted and approved. Plan carefully. Learn about your venues before you arrive. Even the most experienced of us find an 11-second delay in a church acoustic difficult!
Take repertoire you are absolutely sure of. Practicing in venues will be to crowds of people and acoustics will make you hear things differently. Organs may be reluctant to work, sightlines may have disappeared. Learning music while on tour is bad form. Don’t take the most complicated music unless you are happy with it.
Tours involve a lot of travelling and travelling is very tiring; so build in adequate rest and relaxation breaks.
Appoint a stage manager. This will ensure that when arriving in a strange venue with very limited rehearsal time, the stage and seating is sorted.
Try to rehearse in a church similar to the venue before you leave the UK. This way plans can be tried out. On tour leave nothing to chance!
Appoint a tour coordinator. The conductor will have many musical issues to deal with, finding the elusive organ key is a popular European game for example. Leave all the day-to-day issues to someone else.
Ensure that your tour coordinator will take care of everything non musical. Pick the right person for this role; your tour coordinator must be familiar with the internet, be patient and absolutely unflappable.
Remember that audiences abroad can be huge, well informed and very critical. Only your best should do at any time, but in some places it’s absolutely essential that you are giving 129.2 %!

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It was brilliant and everything I expected from a tour and more. Jonathan was brilliant. He was always patient with me and nothing seemed to phase him. Sabine was just wonderful, always willing to listen to what I suggested we wanted from the tour. She has endless patience. Playing at the Last Post was so moving, we felt very privileged to be able to perform at such a moving ceremony.

Cath Danswan, Swindon Choral Society, Wiltshire

Lovely venues, lovely audiences, comfortable accommodation. Alahree was very prompt and efficient with her responses and understood our needs well.

Gill Chapman, Cecilia Singers, Berkshire