Earlier this month, the Chattertocks — one of the oldest collegiate treble a cappella groups in the country — traveled to London for their first international tour. While there, the group spent over a week performing at a variety of venues, navigating logistics and bonding as a team.
This was “the first international tour that the Chattertocks talks have done,” said Sydney Chon ’26, who joined the Chattertocks in her sophomore spring. “We usually go to places like New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut (and) Boston.”
“Being able to go on this tour was a very huge step for a lot of us,” said Karli Cottom ’27, the current president of the Chattertocks.
The group has been planning for the tour since the summer of 2025. According to Cottom, the trans-Atlantic trip required a level of preparation beyond the group’s typical tours — including weekly meetings over the summer and direct outreach to overseas partners.
“A lot of the planning was just cold emailing people,” she said, adding that multiple performances came out of an email to the Brown Club of the United Kingdom and the connections the club provided. “We just wanted to have a pretty good plan set in place.”
Throughout their time in London, the Chattertocks performed nearly every day, Chon said — including performances at various schools and singing at a local children’s hospital. The Chattertocks were received particularly well by the Sacred Heart Language College — an all-girls school in London.
“They treated us as if we were the Beatles,” Cottom said. “They were cheering. They were asking us to sign their hands.”
For Anna Samel ’26, who has been part of the group since her freshman fall, the school performances embodied what the Chattertocks hope to represent.
“It means so much to be able to teach younger girls our music and for them to be so interested,” Samel said. “It just felt like we were doing something with our music.”
For multiple members of the group, the Dec. 13 shooting on campus changed the character of the tour.
“After the shooting happened, … tour, to me, became much more about just being with Brown community members, and just having each other and being there for each other,” Samel said. While in London, the Chattertocks performed for the Brown Club of the United Kingdom, an experience that became more emotional for some members of the group in light of the violence on campus.
“I know that I felt choked up a couple times during that concert, so that was a very beautiful memory for me,” Cottom said.
“It was really nice to have alumni support from around the world and just be able to connect in a way that shared our passion and our love for each other with a larger Brown community.” Chon said.
“Every single Chattertock impacts the group in a positive way,” Samel said. “That little hole is always left when they graduate, and I think that people don’t always realize that. But I think it’s a really beautiful thing.”
Timothy Ro is a senior staff writer covering arts and culture.
