We have a model for choirs who are planning a day trip to Stamford, and propose a package that includes a visit to Burghley House and facilities for lunch and dinner at a local hotel.
We were very happy to welcome the Bury Bach Choir for an early evening concert at St Martins last year. The concert formed part of a "day out" for the choir, who organised coach travel to Stamford, a visit to Burghley House (an extremely fine Elizabethan house with a Capability Brown park practically next door to the church), an afternoon rehearsal in the church, an early evening concert (free entry with retiring collection, which was shared equally between the choir and Music at St Martins), then a barbecue at the Garden House Hotel just up the road from the church, before the coach trip back to Bury. Our 15th century church has an amazing acoustic that is just made for choirs, and the choir (and a number of spouses, partners and friends) clearly had a wonderful day. We certainly loved having them, and would be very interested to hear from other choirs within an hour or so's travelling time who would like to do the same sort of thing next year, or the year after that ...
We look forward to hearing from you!
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The secretary of the Bury Bach Choir has added this:
Well you have all the elements listed: close proximity of the House, Church and Hotel, plus obviously the good weather, that is what is needed and what St Martins and Stamford have in spades! Where people visit and how much they want to pay to eat etc, is individual to each Group. Burghley House has a comprehensive website with all the Group charges on it. The Garden House Hotel has many different menus to choose from...it would depend on what the individual group wants. What Music at St Martin’s has is the unique proximity of place to visit, eat in and sing in.
The less time spent on getting on and off coaches is very important.
The object of the visit, i.e. Stamford in this instance, should not be more than 1 1/2 - 2 hrs coach journey away from the choir's base. These coach drivers can only work for so many hours so that limits the distance that can be travelled.
Finally, rehearsal time should be kept to a minimum as it is costly so if other choirs were to approach you, I would suggest that they should reprise music they are familiar with or perform works that they have recently performed.
Yes Fergus, as for more detail,
