Taking the Boys Choir to Horishima on a tour of Peace and Reconciliation
Inspiring our young people - October 2000, taking the Boys Choir to Horishima on a tour of Peace and Reconciliation
Told to Christine Doyle by Rupert Jeffcoat, former Director of Music:
"This was an important trip (in eight years I took choristers on 12 foreign excursions), not only for the sheer organisation and funding it required but because it made sense of the reconciliation perspective. Visiting Hiroshima and hearing from a Hibakusha (survivor of the bomb) was both harrowing and humbling, yet in a strange way inspiring.
In relation to that, the boys were involved with various performances of the War Requiem across Europe (including the premiere in Volgograd and in the turbine hall that made the V2 bombers near the border with Poland). Most memorable was a marvellous trip to Wurzburg in April 2005 (just before I left) when I took the eldest dozen boys to sing in the cathedral there, as we finally managed to take our Secretary, Janet Hart, with us: she did so much to make the department tick, but was always left back at base holding the fort, so for once we thought she should benefit from all her hard work!
There are of course dozens of odd little stories that fan out from such trips. One slightly amusing story from Japan was the opening ceremony at a huge Buddhist hall where the Bishop of Warwick (Priddis) and Canon Andrew White had to talk about Christianity and Reconciliation respectively. Their speeches bore no resemblance to the ones translated in advance, but we crossed our fingers and hoped that no-one really noticed!"