In Easter 2025, our Principal Jan Royall and Somerville College Choir overcame chaos at Heathrow Airport to embark on a flying visit to friends and supporters in the US. Here we reflect how music and good friends enabled Somerville to salvage hope from the ruins of their original plans.

It was before sunrise on the morning of Friday  21st March, and the members of Somerville College Choir were stood ready to board the coach that would take them to Heathrow, when the news broke. A fire in a Middlesex substation had grounded all flights in and out of the airport.

Faced with the prospect of cancelled flights, collapsing arrangements and missed engagements, you might have expected the organisers of the trip to give up. But then you wouldn’t have been counting on the resourcefulness of the Somerville College Development team, or our heartfelt desire to reconnect with friends in America.  

Within hours, alternative plans were in place. Sadly, the new travel plans meant we had to shorten the itinerary and miss out on the homestays and outreach activities planned for the city of Tyler, home to the Hibbs family and their famous Texan hospitality. However, despite this setback, there were plenty of meaningful opportunities in the ensuing days to spend time reconnecting over the shared values that unite Somervillians around the world.  

The Choir’s first stop on their tour was Houston, Texas. Still in their travel clothes, everyone filed directly from the coach into the beautiful modernist surroundings of St Phillips’s Presbyterian Church. Here, under the peerless conducting of Director of Chapel Music Will Dawes, the Choir gave their first performance to an audience that may have been smaller than planned, yet made up for its size with ten-gallon enthusiasm.

Afterwards, the Choir was delighted and overwhelmed to learn from Tisa Hibbs, mother to alumnus and former Choir member Stratton Hibbs, that, in recognition of its musical excellence and commitment to outreach, the Choir had not only been given the freedom of the City of Tyler, but also that March 25th would henceforth be known as Somerville College Choir Day in Tyler.

Reconnecting with alumni was an important part of this trip, and Somerville Principal, accompanied by Development Director Sara Kalim, managed to reconnect with alumni and friends of the College in Texas, Washington DC and New York.

In DC, Jan and Sara and Dr Nermeen Varawalla (President of the Somerville Association and Advisory Board member of the OICSD) were hosted by Indiaspora for a dinner event at Karma restaurant where they met with former leading US-Indian people of eminence – from entrepreneurs to academics – to promote the work of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville. The pair also found time to meet with Somerville’s recently appointed Professorial Fellow in Linguistics, Professor Colin Phillips, at Planet Word, the fabulously interactive museum dedicated to preserving and promoting world languages. Here they received a personal tour from Colin and Ann Friedman, founder and philanthropist.

Perhaps most memorably in DC was the lunch at which Somerville alumni of all ages were kindly hosted by Frank Islam and Debbie Driesman at their stunning home. Both Frank and Debbie are committed supporters of US cultural institutions as well as Indian universities, and it was captivating to hear about Debbie’s role as Governor’s Member of the Folger Shakespeare Library, a major US institution ensuring Shakespeare’s stories remain accessible to all.

Rejoining the Choir in New York with thoughts of Shakespeare fresh in their minds, Jan and Sara were delighted to meet with New York-based alumni in the famous Shakespeare pub in Manhattan which followed conversations with wonderful alumni and a beautiful concert by the Choir at The Church of Our Saviour in Park Avenue. The trip was memorably concluded with the Choir’s performance at the Festal Eucharist of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue.

Some wonderfully generous Somervillians made the Choir Tour possible: the late Christian Carritt, the Hibbs Family, the Houston Society of Oxford including Somervillian Nancy Brown, Susan Karamanian and Virginia Ross. We offer them heartfelt thanks for enabling such a wonderfully enriching cultural experience for our students.

Somerville Director of Chapel Music Will Dawes commented, “Our first tour to the US since 2016 promised and delivered so much joy, musical highlights, and cultural exchange, albeit four days shorter than planned due to that incident at Heathrow on our planned departure date. Still, the show went on, and 7 days after leaving we arrived back in the UK, enriched by our travels, full of wonderful memories, and grateful for all the support we received before and during the tour from our Somervillian friends in the USA.”

At a time when academic and civil freedoms are threatened, this trip was a timely reminder of the power, both real and symbolic, that friendship and a shared love of learning have in defying the voices of illiberalism. 

Watch the Choir singing at the Sunday service at St Thomas Church with The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys:

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