Once every four years, Otterbein’s Concert Choir tours abroad. This December, the choir is traveling to Ireland to perform several concerts, resembling the style of a professional music tour.
The tour will take place between Dec. 29 and Jan. 8. Among the Irish cities Concert Choir will visit are Dublin, Malahide, Glendalough, Kilkenny, Blarney, Dingle, Limerick, and Galway. Gayle Walker, director of choral activities, will be traveling with the choir. Walker said that they will perform approximately once at each major destination on the tour, singing primarily in cathedrals.
“One of the big reasons we do this is because our students study music history and how music developed in these great churches, and what an important role church music played in Western European music,” Walker said. “So they’re going to sing in these cathedrals and realize what we’ve been teaching and how it sounded in the original cathedrals, where this type of music was performed.”
Concert Choir is the department’s only touring choir. Walker said in between overseas tours, the choir tours within the country and works to raise the funds for the upcoming overseas tour.
Walker encourages all students in the choir to attend the tour because of the team-building experience, but a significant amount of money is necessary to attend. Students in Concert Choir are primarily responsible for raising money to make the trip possible, although Otterbein assists by paying them for performances. Walker said that some of her students work extra jobs or perform recitals in their hometowns to raise the money they need.
One of the students who will attend the Ireland tour is Tim Andrews, a senior communication studies major and co-president of the choir. This will be Andrews’ first overseas tour, and he said he is mostly anticipating the power that music has to breech borders between people.
“It’s just really cool to see how people react to music,” Andrews said. “They don’t have to know us … they don’t have to have any connection to us.”
Walker also looks forward to the experience her students will gain in bridging cultural borders through music.
“All of these cultures are very different, but it doesn’t matter because music is the same for everybody,” she said.
Along with a unique cultural experience, she said her students will have a closer connection to what they’re studying and grow significantly in their professionalism.
To preview the music they will be singing in Ireland, the choir will have a concert Sunday, Nov. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Westerville Community United Church of Christ. The music they will perform is an Irish set in honor of Ireland, Walker said.
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