Plymouth Magazine-Fall26-DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 36
Tours Started Small
The choir’s year of hard work all seemed
worth it once they piled onto buses,
with parent chaperones and staff, for the
annual six-day tour, a season-ending high
point. Bonds of friendships deepened as
members traveled to places many might
not otherwise get to see, stayed in homes
or slept on church floors, and performed
at churches and senior centers, capped off
by the final night’s “closing circle.”
“Tours were 100 percent the culmination
of all things Matins,” said Elbert. “There’s
that heightened bittersweet element that
several of you won’t be returning because
you’re graduating.”
Matins Choir boarding their tour bus in the 1960s.
Matins Choir Tour in 1995.
Matins Choir Tour in 2026.
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“That’s the beauty of the tour,” agreed
Waller, who led the choir for 17 years,
longer than any other director. “When
we went on tour, we were in our own
space and time bubble.”
At the 50th reunion, Dexter chuckled when
asked to talk about the first tour he led in
1960. The choir simply went to Grinnell,
sang, ate dinner and returned home. The
next tour visited Chicago. The six-day
bus tours of today didn’t begin until
1972. Since then, itineraries ranged from
close-to-home Midwestern routes to more
distant destinations such as New York
City, Winnipeg and Colorado. The Home
Concert, which Plymouth now enjoys as
the kick-off for tour, originally served as the
emotional homecoming finalé. (In 1989,
the home concert also introduced Micich
as the next director. Studying in Tennessee
at the time, she hopped onto the bus after
the choir’s final Nashville tour stop.)
Managing a swarm of high-energy teens
sometimes felt like herding cats, especially
as the program expanded. Under Stewart,
whose leadership spanned two separate
five-year tenures, the choir included about
120 students. When Micich took over,
she split Matins in two more manageable
groups: Junior Matins (grades 8—9) and
Senior Matins (grades 10—12). They
rehearsed back-to-back on Wednesday
nights but sang together on Sundays.
Still, the choir’s had its ups and downs,
and by the time Waller arrived in 2006,
she vividly recalls tackling a rebuilding
effort with just 14 returning members.
