By Tom Moseley
CORNWALL, UK — A Nepalese male voice choir, whose disappearance
left organisers of a Cornish music festival scratching their heads
and sparked a Home Office investigation, was last night finally set
to honour its commitment to sing.
The directors of The Cornwall International Male Voice Choir
Festival were dismayed when the 10-strong choir failed to meet a
minibus they had sent to Heathrow on Tuesday morning, raising
concerns that they had “absconded”.
It was believed the men could have breached their visas by
failing to perform at their first booking, on Thursday night, and
the Home Office was informed.
But three days and three missed concerts later, organisers
received a mysterious phone call saying the choir, known as
Nepalaya Kala Manch, was on its way. Festival organiser David
Peters said that he was still in the dark as to where the choir had
spent the past three days, but welcomed the blaze of publicity
generated by their vanishing act.
“I will advise anyone looking to publicise a festival to lose a
Nepalese choir,” he said.
“The call we had to say that they are still alive came from
darkest London. There are high hopes that they will appear. We have
had no explanation – how could they just disappear? We had our man
in Heathrow looking everywhere, and the immigration authorities
were interested. Today they decided to come out of the
cupboard.”
Yesterday, friends of the choir in Nepal reportedly said that
they had “missed their bus” and were set to arrive in
Cornwall.
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