This Winter Study, a group of 16 students traveled to Oxford, England, to perform three kinds of services alongside the Exeter College Evensong Choir as part of “The Oxford Evensong Experience,” a Winter Study travel course led by Choir Director Anna Lenti and College Organist Tim Pyper.

Lenti and Pyper selected the 16 students in the class with an eye towards creating a balanced group of chorally advanced students with four singers for each voice part, Lenti explained. In addition to technical abilities like sight-reading music, they sought a group of students with strong leadership skills. “Yes, you have to have a beautiful voice, but more importantly, you have to be a really confident leader as you’re singing,” Lenti said.

When Teddy Palmore ’27 ­— a member of the Williams Chamber and Concert Choir and the Octet — first learned that there might be a Winter Study trip to Oxford last spring, he knew he had to be a part of it. “I was very, very excited about it,” he said. “It was an opportunity to take my passion for singing somewhere with a lot of people who I’m really close with.”

Chloe Braüm-Bharti ’27, a member of the Williams Chamber Choir, shared some anecdotes into how she first learned about the course and how it has influenced her singing trajectory.

“This Winter Study felt different for me,” she said. “I knew I wanted to do something music-related, and this course felt like the best fit for me.”

Braüm-Bharti recalled the audition process, explaining how rigorous it initially felt. “The audition consisted of being given a piece of music and singing it with very little time to master it,” she said. “The whole process was intimidating, for there were more than 20 students auditioning.”

Before heading across the pond, the singers spent a week and a half on campus practicing traditional Anglican evensong repertoires. After extensive preparation, the group traveled to Oxford and was welcomed by the Exeter College Choir.

When Lenti and Pyper planned the course, they expected to sing Evensong — a traditional sunset church service — with the Exeter students for all three services. However, on the Sunday following their arrival, they were pleasantly surprised by a Christmas carol-themed service focused on Epiphany, the visit of the Three Wise Men. The service was especially memorable for the Williams students, who performed one of the four anthems solo.

“They immediately sounded so professional,” Lenti said. “I think it’s one of the best choirs I’ve ever gotten to conduct in my life.”

The final service of the program included a Eucharist, which featured a more traditional church liturgy that included readings, communion, and music.

The idea of integrating the two choirs over Winter Study was introduced following conversations between Pyper and Michael Kernick, Exeter’s director of music. Both Lenti and Pyper found it fitting, eager to revive the tradition of travel within the Williams Choir experience. They told the Record that this year’s collaboration has fostered new friendships and a sense of camaraderie among students at Williams and Exeter.

“We fit in really well and socially it’s been really fun,” Lenti said. “They’ve all been hanging out outside of rehearsals and having dinner after each of the performances.”

Despite their camaraderie, Lenti noted that the Exeter and Williams students approached the repertory differently, as the British choir culture and educational system allowed them to learn music more quickly and read it with ease. “When we got here, we immediately joined together with the Exeter Choir, who were mostly seeing this music for the first time,” she said. “We’d been rehearsing for an entire week and a half and they were seeing it fresh, and we were at the same level, which is crazy.”

“Rehearsals move a lot faster,” said Palmore. “For them, it’s about learning the pieces so that they sound good, and that’s it. They don’t memorize them. They just move from one piece to the next, which was hard to get used to.”

Lenti wishes to return to Oxford every four years, making this experience a recurring tradition, since it allows students to familiarize themselves with a new culture and music and create lasting friendships based on shared passions. “I’ve really enjoyed being with the students in a different capacity, and I think that’s what’s made the experience so special,” she said.

Editor’s note: Juno Pelczar, a member of the group and an executive editor at the Record, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.