The concert program for the tour, called "Cycles," was prepared by Larry Doebler. It featured six short groups of songs, each treating a particular cycle of life. The offerings included spirituals, folk songs, anthems, traditional sacred songs, and modern compositions. The music ranged widely in harmonic complexity, rhythms, and moods. It was a lavish feast of music.

The choir presented the full program in three ancient cathedrals, an unforgettable experience for many choir members. Baritone Jermaine Hill ’02, who has traveled and performed in several European countries, says, "The places we sang in were amazing. Acoustically, the churches were incredible. Every place was a different sound and needed different approaches, but each was beautiful in its own way."

Jessica Lavway told me that she had always wanted to perform in a medieval church. In Galway her dream came true when the choir sang in the 13th-century St. Nicholas Church. "It was so incredible to sing in a cathedral, especially knowing that in 1492 Christopher Columbus had gone there to pray before leaving for America."

Doebler stood on a folding chair to conduct as the youthful voices filled the dusky, gray spaces of the ancient church with light and color. Any misgivings the students may have had about performing Irish music (renditions of the Irish national anthem and "Danny Boy") for a home audience all fell away. Bass Marc Webster ’02 saw "the audience sitting back, closing their eyes, and listening to music they knew."

At Limerick the concert venue was the newly renovated, surprisingly bright, gold-trimmed St. Augustine’s Church in the center of town. It was especially gratifying to tenor Chris Desjardins ’02, who attends an Augustinian church in his hometown, to perform in that "vibrant" environment. Most of the congregation members attended the performance, and they were visibly moved. After the concert a woman from the audience said to me, "I find it particularly striking how the singers look so engaged as they perform." Doebler encourages his students to explore and discuss what the music means to them personally and to express that when they perform, and he directs them to look out at the faces of the audience while they sing, not at him. Desjardins explains the connectedness the choir achieves with its audience: "There are two universal languages --- human emotion and music. When you have them together, you are speaking in a language that everyone can understand."

In a spacious, glossy-floored hall at the University of Galway, we observed a movement workshop for the choir and about 20 local teachers and singers. Doebler directed the group through an hour of exercises that combined movement with vocalizing or singing. The workshop started with a simple vocalization combined with upper-body movements. Doebler then asked the singers to "step the notation," that is, step in rhythm with the song they were singing. Later, they were told to form "amoebas" --- 10 or 12 people all holding hands and moving in a spontaneous pattern as they sang. The only requirement was that the singers keep holding hands as they snaked about. The exercises gave singers new ways to explore how to make music together, how to express emotions through their singing, and how to use the whole body as a musical instrument.