Scott Price, director of music at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, Kensington, a London Catholic boys’ comprehensive.
We arrange a musicians’ tour every academic year. It's important for ensuring the boys remain involved and keen on their music-making. We work with ACFEA Tour Consultants in London and wouldn't travel with anyone else.
We've been all over Europe but destinations further afield live longest in the memory. We've toured extensively in the United States, often with our large school choir of more than 100; travelling in a coach convoy from San Francisco to Los Angeles was memorable!
Our Big Band and orchestra tour as well, and an excellent destination was Hong Kong. We gave concerts mostly in schools, often alongside their music groups – an excellent way for pupils to interact. The Far East cultural experience was superb, exploring new cuisines and offering insights into how different cultures live.
Our most remarkable tour to date was South Africa. Travelling with our Schola, we spent ten days singing Mass in Regina Mundi in Soweto, being on safari, travelling the Garden Route, and working with a school choir in Cape Flats, a township outside Cape Town.
These occasions will stay with us for a very long time I am sure.
Charles Janz is head of music at Ibstock Place, an independent co-educational day school for pupils aged 4 to 18, in southwest London.
Ibstock Place this year travelled to Venice
My most memorable three tours of late have been to New York, Washington and, this year, Venice.
On our first afternoon in New York we gave our first of five performances in the city at Holy Trinity, 88th Street, battling fatigue and jetlag to give an excellent performance of their full tour repertoire. As with all performances on the tour, we were fortunate to benefit from the support of many choir parents and friends who swelled the stalls, in particular at a service at St Paul's Chapel.
Travelling to America is not without its stresses but after navigating various security and visa obstacles we arrived for four performances, including Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Washington DC, which has a luxurious acoustic.
My final recommendation is northern Italy; although based on the outskirts of Venice we performed in Padua and Marostica, at the Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli, as well as at the church of Santa Maria della Piet in Venice itself, where the audience was so big it spilled onto the streets. In Padua, we sang Mass at the basilica before returning to St Mark's Basilica in Venice to sing in a breath-taking building.
Helen Davies is director of music and head of performing arts at St Christopher's Church of England High School, Accrington in Lancashire.
St Christopher's Church has been touring abroad for 19 years
Our bands and choirs have been touring for 19 years with Club Europe Concert Tours. We're in an area of extreme deprivation; for many pupils this is the first time they've been abroad. We fundraise, and pupils who attract the government's pupil premium receive assistance.
Pupils gain confidence, improve musical skills and work better as a team. We tour with around 60 pupils from Years 8 to 13 in the senior vocals girls’ choir, the SATB sixth form choir and the swing band.
We have many special memories but the three that stand out are St Mark's in Venice, Labin in Croatia and the picturesque village of Valvasone in northern Italy.
The Basilica is a perfect venue for a choir to lead Mass. It always has a full congregation and despite the lack of facilities it's worth it. The former pupils are still talking about it on the alumni site several years on.
In Labin, the square in this mountain-top village has perhaps the best audience of any venue, buzzing with people who can't help but watch and appreciate.
In Valvasone, we were greeted by the mayor, shown an electric plug and a place to set up, along with an apology that ‘we don't know if anyone will come to your concert as this is the first time we've had a concert here’. Expectations were adjusted and just 20 chairs were arranged – but the square was packed and the reaction of the audience was unbelievable. Some were even moved to tears.
