Fifteen-year-old Eliza Swan of Leura recently had the trip of a lifetime when she visited the United Kingdom as part of the NSW Public Schools Singers and Symphony Orchestra UK Tour.
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The student, who is Year 10 at Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School in Emu Plains, has been a member of the prestigious NSW Public School Singers for the past four years. The group rehearse at the NSW Arts Unit in Lewisham every Tuesday.
The tour group comprised 126 students and teachers. Filling over a quarter of a Qantas flight, the group flew from Sydney to London and then travelled to Manchester in three tour buses with an accompanying truck to carry the instruments.
During the 16-day tour Eliza attended sectional choral workshops which included training with Simon Halsey, chorus director of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Cecilia Madden of the Limerick School of Music.
Performances venues included Stoller Hall Manchester, St Sepulchre Church London, The University of Cork and the impressive Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin which was founded in 1030. Most of the concerts were sold out in advance and concluded with standing ovations.
With winter temperatures averaging between zero and ten degrees, the students were especially excited to see snow in Manchester and London, and while this was thrilling for many who had never seen snow before, Eliza said “it wasn’t as much snow as we get in Leura!”
Some of Eliza’s tour highlights included visiting Oxford University where scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed, shopping in Covent Garden London, and seeing a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall. She also loved the chance to connect with local students from the Cór Coláiste Choilm Choir in Cork, Ireland who taught the Australian students how to dance the Ceilidh.
The final concert was held at the Helix Theatre, Dublin where the NSW Singers and Orchestra performed with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. The Australian Ambassador to Ireland was a special guest and by the finale both the audience and the performers were on their feet dancing and crying at the same time – a moment Eliza will never forget.
Tour director Steve Williams said he had been “fortunate to have been involved in many very successful international music tours since I joined The Arts Unit back in 1999 [and] this was unquestionably the most full-on, exhausting, music-filled and happy tour I have ever been on”.