The Christ Church, Glendale, choir, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Photo by Avery Brookbank.
4
An English Pilgrimage
“Best choir trip ever!” “An ethereal experience.” “Humbling.” “I’m exhausted.” On the evening of August 12, a group of very weary singers, family members and friends arrived back at Christ Church, Glendale, with many memories and emotions. Just twelve days earlier, sent on our way by a blessing from our rector David Pfaff, we had boarded a chartered bus that would take us to Chicago’s O’Hare airport to begin the long journey to England, where we would be in residence for a week at Winchester Cathedral. For this, our fifth such pilgrimage, most of our usual Sunday choir members were joined by six alumnae from CCG’s girls’ choir, our curate, Father Nick Evancho, our deacon, Anne Reed, and her husband, Giff – twenty-five voices in all. Christ Church choir director Dr. Bryan Mock and our organist for the
A view of the belfry at Winchester Cathedral. Photo by Frank Foster. trip, Bryan’s former student Thomas Heidenreich, joined us in the small cathedral city of Wells. There we spent
a restful two days revisiting old haunts from our first choir trip in 2007, touring Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals, and acclimating to the time change. This journey was the culmination of months of practice and preparation. Our thick stack of music included five different acapella Preces and Responses for Evensong, eight anthems, six different compositions of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, various Anglican chants for the daily psalms, special music for Sunday’s Matins, several unfamiliar British hymns, and two different settings for choral Eucharist, one for the Feast of the Transfiguration which fell during our week. We arrived in Winchester on Monday and immediately began our exhausting daily routine. Fueled by a full English breakfast (baked beans optional), we hurried to the choir school for morning rehearsal, followed by some precious free
