Singing in Paris!

24 members of Schola Cantorum travelled to Paris with the staff of the Music Department to take part in the International Choir Festival.

We had a really exciting weekend filled with concert performances and sight-seeing of the city. After we arrived on Friday and had lunch and unpacked, we jumped on the metro, walked up to the Sacre Coeur and viewed the sights of Paris. Changing into ‘Concert Dress’ we then performed a 25 minute choral programme at Eglise …St Joseph Artisan, with other choirs from Madagascar, China, France and a children’s choir from Turkey. On Saturday we went on a relaxing boat cruise along La Seine, followed by shopping and lunch on Les Champs-Élysées. In the afternoon we performed two sacred works at our next concert in the church of La Madeleleine, which involved the same choirs as before plus choirs from Vietnam and Italy. After the performance we had a lovely meal and then went up the Eiffel Tower to see Paris lit up by night. On our final day we took part in a Catholic Mass at the church St Germain l’Auxerrois. The Bishop took the service and we sang four sacred works. At lunch in a restaurant the staff requested that we sing to them, so after our meal we sang our 4-fold ‘Amen’ in 3-part harmony, a cappella. The whole restaurant listened to our mini concert.