Merton College Girl Choristers: Residential Trips

In 2023, the Girl Choristers embarked on their first international tour, traveling to Paris to perform at the American Cathedral in Paris and Saint-Sulpice. 

The Girl Choristers in Saint Sulpice

Girl Choristers stood in front of the illuminated Eiffel Tower

 

After a forced break in our Residential schedule, the Choristers were able to tour once more in 2022. Our residential trip saw the Choristers sing evensong at Tewkesbury Abbey (pictured below), a concert for one of Merton's College Livings in Rushall, and evensong at Gloucester Cathedral. 

A group of Choristers in burgundy cassocks and white surplices stand in Tewkesbury Abbey holding their black and gold music folders
Tewkesbury Abbey
The choristers sing in their burgundy cassocks in the stalls in front of the large blue and red glass window of of Gloucester Cathedral
Gloucester Cathedral

 

In 2020 and 2021 the Girl Choristers were unable to travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020 the Choristers participated in socially distanced summer sessions at Merton. In the summer of 2021, the Choristers recorded their debut Christmas album, In the Stillness, which will have it's highly-anticipated commercial release in time for Christmas 2022.

Smiling choristers in a candlelit Merton Chapel on the cover of a CD titled In the Stillness
The Choristers debut solo recording, In the Stillness

 

In August 2019, the Girl Choristers travelled to Chichester, for three days in residence at Chichester Cathedral. They sang Evensong at the Cathedral at 5:30pm each evening.

In August 2018, the Girl Choristers enjoyed a four-day trip to the North East. The choristers sang Evensong in Durham Cathedral, and gave concerts at the churches of Holy Trinity, Embleton and St Mary the Virgin, Ponteland. Both Embleton and Ponteland are College ‘Livings’ and in 2018 we celebrated the 750th anniversary of the link between Ponteland and Merton. The concert programmes included music by Byrd, Handel, Copland, Hurford, Lindley, Archer, and ending with John Scott’s arrangement of How can I keep from singing?

Merton College Girl Choristers singing in Durham Cathedral, August 2018

 

The Girl Choristers took their first residential trip, to Cheltenham and Cirencester, in August 2017, rehearsing in a local school and singing the Sunday service at Cirencester Parish Church.  

Merton College Girl Choristers in Cheltenham, 2017