Organising an international concert tour is no small undertaking. For choir leaders, the musical preparation is only part of the challenge, with travel, accommodation, finances, concert arrangements and the needs of a large group all requiring careful coordination.
For Huddersfield-based choir director Jane Hobson, those challenges are familiar territory. As Musical Director of Coro Amici, Jane has helped organise musical trips in a variety of ways, from arranging residential weekends to working with specialist tour providers on larger international projects.
Over the years, she has led groups ranging from small ensembles to more than 100 performers. So, when Coro Amici began planning a concert tour to Budapest, she already had plenty of experience to draw on.
A different approach to choral singing
Coro Amici takes a project-based approach to singing. Rather than having a fixed membership and rehearsing together throughout the year, the Huddersfield choir brings singers together for particular programmes and performances.
That means its membership can be varied, with participants ranging from experienced choristers to people who have never sung in a choir before. There are no auditions and no requirement to read music, with the emphasis on making choral singing accessible and creating musical experiences that people might not otherwise have considered.
As Jane puts it:
"People come along because it's an experience they thought they would never have."
That ethos also extends to the choir's approach to performing and travelling together.
What organising tours independently can teach you
Before the Budapest trip, Jane had already arranged a number of musical trips herself, alongside the help of two other choir members.
She has organised residential weekends directly with hotels and coordinated larger performance projects overseas. One particularly memorable trip to Malta involved more than 100 performers, additional musicians and several performances.
Those experiences gave her a detailed understanding of what happens behind the scenes on a choir tour - from keeping track of costs and participants to making sure everyone knows where they need to be.
They also demonstrated just how much responsibility can rest with the person organising the trip.
"You've got to be prepared," Jane says. "Even though I've done it before, certainly that last seven days, it's almost 24/7."
For her, good organisation starts well before the group sets off, with clear communication, accurate records and a team that can respond when plans inevitably change.
The particular challenges of a project-based choir
For Coro Amici, the project-based model brings an additional consideration: numbers can change as the tour approaches.
When the Budapest trip was first announced, more than 80 people expressed an interest in travelling. As with many adult groups, however, circumstances changed, and the final touring party was smaller.
A number of Coro Amici's members are retired, and health, family commitments and other personal circumstances can sometimes affect whether someone is ultimately able to take part.
For the organiser, those changes can have a knock-on effect on accommodation, transport and the overall cost of the trip.
It means that flexibility is particularly important. Plans need to be sufficiently robust to cope with changes while keeping participants informed along the way.
Finding the right support
For the Budapest tour, Jane considered a number of options, including organising elements herself and speaking to tour providers she had worked with previously.
Having experienced different approaches, she knew that the practical arrangements were only part of what she was looking for. Communication and an understanding of the particular demands of taking a choir overseas were equally important.
She says the early conversations with Rayburn Tours stood out because the information provided helped her make decisions about the trip.
"Rayburn were the ones that came back and gave me the information I needed."
It's about the relationship
Perhaps the biggest lesson Jane has taken from her experience of organising tours is that the relationship between the choir leader and the people helping to arrange the trip is important.
The organiser remains responsible for the group and its members, but a large concert tour involves so many moving parts that having reliable support can make a significant difference.
Looking back on the Budapest experience, Jane says:
"The relationship between me and the operator was paramount."
Her experience doesn't mean there is only one way to organise a choir tour. She has done plenty of it herself and knows that different groups will have different requirements.
And ultimately, there is a much simpler reason why she continues to take choirs abroad.
"It's the joy,β she states.
