Learn more about the soloists performing in the upcoming London 2012 Summer Games Concert Tour and the unique venues where they will be playing.

St. Giles’ Cathedral

Founded in the twelfth century, St. Giles’ Cathedral endured through the Middle Ages and the Reformation and still plays an important role in Endinburgh today. St. Giles’ has its origins as a small parish church and grew as it became the cathedral of the Edinburgh diocese from 1633 to 1638 and again from 1661 to 1689. St. Giles is not presently a cathedral, despite its name.

Due to its major role in the cultural life of Edinburgh, the church has undergone many changes since its construction. For example, the exterior present today dates from 1833, and the interior dates from 1883.

John Knox ignited the Reformation in Scotland when he gave a sermon at St. Giles’ in 1559. He later became the minister at the church.

St. Giles’ became quite a complex place through the 1600s and 1700s, as it was divided into four distinct churches, a meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a police station, and a fire station.

Except for this division and the repair of the crown atop its tower in 1684, St. Giles’ was then left largely unchanged until the early 1800s. Over the years, it had slowly decayed until it was in dire need of restoration. Throughout the nineteenth century, St. Giles’ underwent two major restoration projects: one of the interior and the other of the exterior.

Soloists performing at this venue:

Olympic Park

Photograph by Mike Peel. [CC-BY-SA-2.5 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Almost 1 square mile in size, the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympic Games has become an icon of the upcoming Games. London is the first city to host the Olympic Games three times, the first being just over a century ago in 1908. The second games hosted in the city were those of 1948, the first to take place after World War II.

The Olympic Park is located in Lea Valley, once voted the worst part of London in which to live. It has a dirty industrial history, but the Park and the Games are intended to be very environmentally friendly, with most deliveries being made by boat or train and the soil having been filtered of toxins during construction.

Soloists performing at this venue:

Kevin Prochnow

Elizabeth Yu

Oxford Town Hall

Over a century old, present-day Oxford Town Hall was constructed in the late Victorian era, being the third seat of local government to be built at its location. The existing Town Hall was initially called the New Municipal Building, the name Town Hall belonging to a meeting room inside of the building. However, the name Town Hall now belongs to the entire building, and the meeting room is known as the Main Hall.

Town Hall has been visited by a number of important people, including the former Soviet President Gorbachev and the former South Africa President Nelson Mandela.

An interesting fact is that the Main Hall was originally designed to hold up to 1800 seats, but this number has since been reduced to under 800, for safety reasons.

Soloists performing at this venue:

Elizabeth Chen

Katie Nakamura

Bristol Cathedral

Bristol Cathedral was founded in 1140 as St. Augustine’s Abbey, not becoming known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity until 1542. The originality of the design of the Norman Church that was built in the Abbey in 1298 led to its becoming a model of hall churches throughout Europe.

Soloists performing at this venue: