Corona del Mar choir bridges ocean and languages on musical trip to France

Corona del Mar High School choir students are back after crossing the Atlantic for a 10-day trip to France, where they stayed with local residents and performed around the country.

Twenty-seven of the school’s Madrigal Singers left California on Feb. 15 and hit the road in France for Antibes, Gap and, finally, Paris.

“It was my first time going to France … my first time going to Europe, actually,” student Katie Kim said.

Corona del Mar choral instructor Andrew Ball started arranging the trip for his students last March. There are many touring opportunities for singers in the spring and summer, but typically not in the winter, he said.

Ball contacted the Newport Beach Sister City Assn., ACFEA Tour Consultants — a tour-arranging company based in Edmonds, Wash. — and a personal contact of his in France to set up the trip.

“When Mr. Ball announced that we’d be going … we were all in disbelief,” Katie said.

In November, when terrorist attacks unfolded in Paris, it became clear that the choir’s trip would not only be to perform but also to show solidarity with France, Ball said.

“I contacted the tour company so we could arrange to stop by the memorials to pay our respects,” Ball said. “Being a teenager, your bubble is small and you don’t know past your own city. For many of [the students], this was the most impactful part of the trip.”

While in the French capital, the choir visited Place de la République, a monument where candles, flowers, posters and flags were left in remembrance of the attacks.

The Madrigal Singers performed the song “Prayer of the Children” in front of the monument.

“The song is about hearing the children and helping them, but when we sang it in front of the memorial, it gave the song a whole new meaning and a deeper connection to the music for all of us,” student Gianna Schott said.

The group first visited Antibes, a city in southern France, to perform at Cathédrale Notre Dame de l’Immaculée Conception.

After one day there, the choir departed for Gap, a town in the southern French Alps where the students stayed with host families for two nights.

The living arrangements gave some students a chance to brush up their language skills from French class, while others simply improvised.

“I relied heavily on Google Translate,” student Robert Garrett said with a laugh. “But overall, I could tell that everyone there was very happy to receive us.”

The hosts, which Ball found through his contact in France, were singers in a community choir in Gap.

Though many of the French singers and the Corona del Mar performers faced a language barrier, the musical connection proved enough of a bond, some students said.

“Our host had a piano, and the moment I told her I played, she gave me music,” Katie said. “She said, ‘Play it,’ and we played piano together. Even though we don’t speak the same language, we still had a great time.”

The choir finished the trip with performances at Cathédrale Notre-Dame and La Madeleine Church in Paris.