The year 1949 began with the usual rounds of recitals and oratorios, a trip to Holland in the second half of January, a brief one to Ireland at the beginning of February and a performance of Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Rafael Kubelik at the Royal Albert Hall followed by a BBC recording and other studio recordings in the middle of the month. Then it was back to America on a trip which would last for more than three months before she arrived back in Britain at the end of May. This time she was on her own, although she would be renewing acquaintances and friendships struck up a year earlier as well as making new ones. On 14th February she collected the orchestral parts for Orfeo, which she took with her to New York four days later, an unheard of obligation on any solo artist today. The voyage took a day and a half longer than the scheduled week due to poor weather, and so she had to go straight into rehearsal of Orfeo at New York's Town Hall. Familiar complaints arose as she began to tour to relative backwaters such as Granville, Ohio. These often involved long overnight train journeys which left her exhausted. She was not helped by Arpad Sandor, her accompanist of the previous year, who was suffering a nervous breakdown, though Kathleen was unaware of this at the time. And so the tour progressed with mixed fortunes in terms of weather, hotels and audience behaviour. Her spirits revived when she was rapturously received at her New York recital (28th March), which consisted of a typical Ferrier programme starting with the Baroque era, and proceeding via Schubert and Brahms’ Four Serious Songs, to a group of lighter British folksongs and arrangements. After the energising success of New York it was back to earth with a bump, a slow train journey to Ottawa, Canada, and increasing worries about her accompanist. Another journey, this time to Highland Park, Illinois for a concert on 1st April, incurred a four-hour delay, which only made her even more ‘bad-tempered’. If this was someone's idea of an April Fool, Kathleen was not amused.