"While some professional British vocal groups have long-established reputations in Japan, my wife and I felt that few Japanese fans realized how those groups actually came into being, nor how their great expertise was acquired. The collegiate and cathedral choirs are at the root of the English choral tradition."
Timothy and Yoko Minton were motivated to organize musical tours of Japan for choirs from Oxford and Cambridge universities. Since they began in 1996, they have brought collegiate choirs on seven occasions. This month they are arranging for the choir of New College Oxford to give Christmas organ concerts in several Honshu locales.
Minton as a boy was a chorister at Worcester Cathedral. He remembers, at age 9, being taken to King's School, Worcester, his new boarding school, which all the choristers had to attend. He had won a music scholarship to the school. He said, "For nearly five years, I devoted about three hours each day to the choir in addition to regular lessons, was not allowed to go home at weekends, and had to spend considerable chunks of each vacation on activities associated with choir membership."