How do you plan a tour program?
Tour programming comes with some special challenges. These might include:
- Programming more sacred repertoire than usual, to meet requirements of religious performance venues. (You want to perform in these venues!)
- Programming for limited rehearsal time. (My touring choirs have almost always been ad hoc, not an entire extant ensemble.)
- Programming literature from your tour destination. (It’s a good cultural education to sing music from the place you’re visiting.)
- Programming literature to represent your own culture. (Audiences want to hear your choir sing your native music, too.)
In my experience, the right answer to most of these questions is, program familiar repertoire. Program the chestnuts that you (a) know how to rehearse and (b) know will be well-received, both by your ensemble and your eventual audience.