The Advanced Ensemble is an auditioned, select choir, and members must be enrolled in the school's Center for the Visual and Performing Arts magnet program. It is the primary touring/performing choir at Northwestern. The Advanced Ensemble performs music of the same genre as the main Concert Choir, but the music tends to be more challenging, with more foreign-language repertoire. The Advanced Ensemble travels and performs the most extensively of all the performing groups. The Advanced Ensemble underwent their first international tour in July 2013, when they traveled to South Africa to participate in a two-week concert tour, as part of the prestigious Ihlombe South African Choral Festival. They visited the cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Soweto, and Cape Town. The group achieved international notoriety and media coverage during their tour, when they performed outside of the Mediclinic Heart Hospital, the facility where revered former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was being treated for illness.