Summer Tour 2025 – Part 4

By Leon

Following our fabulous four nights at the school, we took an early coach to our concert venue and home for the night, the Lark. The Lark is a brand-new concert venue especially built for choirs so, as you would expect, it was a stunning venue. Following a quick change and short read (we wouldn’t get our devices back until the next day!), we went to do a soundcheck and rehearsal. Although the venue was smaller than usual, it certainly made up for it in grandeur. With the orchestra behind us on a raised platform and the seating ascending to another level, it was one of the most stunning venues I’ve performed at, and it was certainly a great place to finish our Ireland leg of the tour.

Once rehearsal was finished, we took a quiet stroll down to the beach, with Andy taking his usual amount of photographs. An extra five minutes of skimming stones later, we headed back up to the restaurant for lunch, which offered an amazing selection of food grilled on the barbecue, namely burgers, chicken wings, and sausages. But with a lot of it covered in barbecue sauce, I can say that many of my friends (and I!) got very messy. Luckily, we had changed back into our Sunday uniform so no one went on stage looking like a crime scene.

After the delicious lunch, with the concert fast approaching, we changed back into our robes and, after another quick read and mic check, it was time to start the show. The show was similar in songs to our previous concert at Southwark but included three special Irish pieces. These were performed with help from Eimear and Ruairi playing some traditional Irish instruments.

At the end of a very successful third concert, we headed to where we were staying for the night which, helpfully, was right next to the concert hall. We stayed in rooms of mixed numbers and ages, each with our own bed in our own little cubicle. We all had a very comfortable sleep, despite Eleanor having to come into our room at midnight to kill a spider! Luckily, we got back to sleep soon after, as we were woken up at six o’clock in the morning to catch a very early flight.

On arrival at the terminal, we had a quick breakfast before going through passport control and security. After a short refreshment break at duty free, we headed to our gate and boarded our flight to Barcelona. Once we collected our luggage at the airport, we walked outside into the humid air for a scenic half-hour drive up into the mountains, before arriving at our hotel opposite the beautiful Montserrat Abbey, ready to start our final concert of the tour.

To be continued…