NYCOS Goes Global

Touring with NYCoS is special. But what makes it so good, and why do members who declare that it will mark the end of their singing with NYCoS then change their minds?

Hazel Younger, NYCoS member, tells her story.

The announcement that NYCoS was going to Chicago may not have come as much of a surprise but it did result in a frankly ludicrous level of excitement among the choir. Having never been on tour before – university commitments had prevented me from joining NYCoS in Sweden three years previously - I just wasn't sure what to expect. I knew it would be memorable, and I guessed it would be a bigger and better NYCoS course, though hopefully one with a lot less rain.

NYCoS Founder Members - 8 years on

The summer course of 2004 proved to be a welcome warm-up for the tour. We were blissfully unaware of what we had got ourselves into until we saw the music. After the initial waves of panic had subsided and we'd note-bashed our way through some of the Walton, our confidence grew and the belief that we had started something rather special took hold. Once the course was over, most of us spent the next three weeks jumping up and down in anticipation, and trying to explain to anyone who would listen exactly why going to Chicago was worth sacrificing your package holiday, birthday money (for the next three years) and your entire yearly holiday allowance.

Checking in at the airport saw the first of the NYCoS travel curse; the flight was overbooked and as Ruth and Uncle Bob had supervised the rest of us checking in, there was only space for Uncle Bob on the flight. The rest of our flight passed uneventfully, and gave us a chance to catch up on the gossip, speculate about the following fortnight and practise our new name – the National Collegiate Chorale of Scotland ("youth" apparently suggesting that we were 10 years younger). The second group were not so lucky – they landed happily at the airport but their luggage didn't. It trickled in over the next 3 or 4 days, giving us a lot of stress but also a good excuse to hit the shops immediately.

After a good night's sleep, we jumped straight into rehearsals. Despite the fact that we hadn't sung together in nearly a month and were suffering from jetlag, the prospect of meeting the Grant Park Chorus gave us the motivation to put in the effort required to appease Christopher. Meeting the chorus was a fairly intimidating experience, but as soon as we started singing we remembered why we were all together. I think most of us found ourselves singing better (and certainly louder), concentrating harder and learning faster in order to impress the professional singers. The sound was amazing; combining the power of the Grant Park Chorus with the purity of NYCoS took some practice, but resulted in a fantastically flexible range and tone. Two weeks of rehearsals were broken up nicely by the repertoire. The first week covered Walton's Belshazzar's Feast and Corrigliano’s L'Invitation Au Voyage, while the second focussed on Britten's War Requiem. The main difference, apart from the music, was that during our second week we were conducted by Carlos Kalmar, the Grant Park conductor. While we have been conducted by others in the past, NYCoS always takes a little convincing that we can trust someone else, and a little practice in understanding what they want (without the help of Christopher's controversial analogies). However as soon as Carlos got excited enough to stand on the piano we were convinced and proceeded to sing with as much conviction as we always do.

At the Chicago Cultural Centre

The rehearsals led quickly into the concerts, and it is the performances that will stick in my mind as the key moments of the tour. NYCoS concerts are generally fairly intense experiences, but those in Chicago pushed the bar that bit higher. We performed a few times without Grant Park Chorus – part of the arrangement for our inclusion in the Grant Park Festival was agreeing to do outreach concerts in parks around Chicago. Never settling for the easy option, NYCoS sang two concerts simultaneously each week; the choir was split in half and one group was conducted by Christopher while the other was conducted by Mark Evans. The concerts went reasonably smoothly (some audiences being more receptive than others!) once we focussed on the music and not on the armed security at the door! The only other concert we performed without the Grant Park Chorus was part of the Dame Myra Hess concert series. The novelty of singing together as NYCoS – TV cameras, overflowing audience and the realisation that for some, this would be our last performance in NYCoS – led to another intense performance.

Of course, the main concerts of the tour were those with the Grant Park Chorus in the newly designed Pritzker Pavilion, in Millennium Park.

At the Pritzker Pavilion

The venue itself was incredible – though we'd seen pictures, the sheer scale of the pavilion was amazing, even viewed from the other side of the road!

The view from the stage was even more breathtaking; once full, the pavilion held about 9,000 spectators, lit up under a metal trellis criss-crossing from high above the stage to the back of the open-air seating. The four concerts we performed in the Pritzker were undoubtedly the most memorable in my experience of NYCoS. Warmly received by the audience, and the press, the power of the combined choruses singing such intense music resulted in some rather emotional moments. I may have a reputation for being particularly weepy during concerts, but I'm reasonably sure I wasn't the only one.

The rest of Millennium Park was no less appealing than the Pritzker. Full of arty features such as the facing fountains and the Family Album, we spent a lot of time there, not just moving to and from rehearsals and concerts, but also relaxing and taking in Chicago as a city. During our plentiful free time, we did our best to explore the surrounding area and indulge in typically touristy activities. We admired the view from the Sears tower, sampled the (admittedly stunning) chocolate cake in the Hancock tower, took various architecture tours, visited Navy Pier, the planetarium, aquarium, zoo and beach and did yet more shopping. We ate in several themed restaurants, with the all-singing, all-rudeness Ed Debovic's being a personal favourite. Lunch every day was provided in a high class Italian Restaurant, on the top floor which supplied us with a beautiful view but yet more travel problems in terms of the somewhat temperamental lifts.

Presentation to Jim Palermo, Artistic Director of Grant Park Festival

The last night of the tour (and a good excuse for a party) arrived all too soon. After great food, good chat and well-deserved applause for Carlos, Ruth, Christopher, Jim, Uncle Bob, Ian, Mark and Judith, we relived the best moments of the tour, finished what seemed to be our seventy-fourth camera film and realised that we could finally name every single member of the choir. The next morning we reluctantly packed up, moved out and spent the last of our dollars. The second group arrived at the airport to discover that the curse had struck yet again, and their flight was cancelled. Luckily they were transferred onto a direct flight, and ended up in Glasgow earlier than they were supposed to.

Since the end of the tour, there has been a great deal of photo-swapping and reminiscing. Several singers who swore that the tour would mark their last year with NYCoS have relented and decided to keep going until the ten year birthday year at least. For those who can't return, the tour was certainly a fitting and memorable end to their NYCoS career. For the newer members, it has demonstrated why the effort and commitment put in by NYCoS, Christopher, Ruth and the rest of the NYCoS team is undoubtedly worth it.

Hazel Younger