Singers perform in England

Peterborough group spending a week performing at 1,000-year-old cathedral in York, England

A young singer from Peterborough spent part of her 20th birthday Tuesday singing in one of northern Europe’s largest cathedrals.

Tonya-Leah Watts is a member of the Peterborough Singers.

They’re singing at York Minster this week as the cathedral’s choir in residence.

The group of 50 singers arrived in York, England Sunday, singing in their first evensong Monday.

An evensong – an evening prayer service – is an ancient tradition in Anglican churches.

Watts joined the Peterborough Singers in the fall.

The Trent University student had never been out of the country before she left on Sunday. She’d never been on a plane and didn’t own a passport.

“It was a trip of a lifetime for me. It was a lot of firsts,” Watts said, of why she wanted to go to York.

York Minster is about 1,000 years old and is a gothic-style cathedral.

Normally, the 20-year-old would be snapping tons of photos on her phone to share on social media.

But when she walked out of the cathedral after evensong Monday, Watts realized she had taken a single picture.

She was too in awe of the cathedral and the experience to think of anything else.

“I was just so in awe of the beauty, the massiveness of this cathedral, every single detail you could see, everything is covered in detail and architecture. It was just an amazing site to see,” she said during a phone interview Thursday.

Thursday was the choir’s day off. It was a silent day for the cathedral.

The group made a trip Thursday to Scarborough, which is on England’s North Sea coast.

There, Watts experienced another first.

“I stuck my feet in the sea for the first time,” she said.

The Peterborough Singers continue to sing during evensong, which starts at 5:15 p.m., until Saturday. Then on Sunday, they’ll sing during three services.

Syd Birrell, the artistic director, founder and conductor of the Peterborough Singers, said the choir has been waiting five years to return to the cathedral. They were last there in 2011.

“The waiting list is pretty huge,” he said.

Cathedrals host visiting choirs from around the world in the summer while their choirs are off.

The Peterborough Singers prepared 45 pieces of music for their six days at York Minster. They sing about five songs per evensong. On Monday, the group sang

The Spirit of The Lord, written by Birrell. They also performed a piece by Tertius Noble. He was the organist and choirmaster at York Minster about 100 years ago.

Before the choir sings during evensong, they practise in the choir room, where a portrait of Noble hangs on the wall.

Birrell said it was exciting to practise a piece written by the organist of the cathedral in his former choir room, before going into the cathedral to sing it.

“There is all this lovely history the whole time and you realize the music you’ve been singing back in Canada, here’s the context, here’s where it was written to be sung.”