Choir holidays

The choir holiday has been a fixture since 2001. At the end of August each year, around 20 members of the choir take themselves off for a week, to enjoy singing in a beautiful part of Europe. Performing as the Summertown Singers, the group explores an a cappella repertoire of sacred works, madrigals and part-songs. Daily rehearsals go hand in hand with relaxing in the sun, exploring, and sampling the local food and wine. The local welcome is warm and hospitable. Partners, friends and family come along too and enjoy the holiday. The week ends with a well-attended performance in a local venue.

Browse photos and other memorabilia from previous holidays by following these links:

2011 ~ Haro, La Rioja, Spain
2010 ~ Saint-Gengoux-le-National, Burgundy, France
2007 - 2009 ~ Montecchio, Umbria, Italy
2001 - 2006 ~ Jimena de la Frontera, Spain

If you fancy the idea of a week spent singing in beautiful surroundings and with like-minded people, why not think about coming along this year? You'll find details of the 2012 holiday here.

Our latest trip to Haro in the Rioja region of Spain...

There are few wineries in Spain whose name conjures the heritage and prestige evoked by Lopez de Heredia and it was in the Blondeau bodega of this renowned Haro wine maker that the Summertown Singers performed in summer 2011. Widely recognised as one of Spain’s “Grand Cru” vineyards, Hugh Johnson professes it to be his favourite Rioja bodega. “In the vat room below its jaunty brick tower, Moorish in parts, seaside gothic in others, you can see wine making with no evident alteration from a hundred years ago; oak-age technology, fragrant grey-brown vats, pulleys with iron chains. In the rock cut cellars below lie fifteen thousand bordelesas used for ageing red and white wines for up to fifteen years.”