history>Concerts in 2007
- Sunday 16th December: our annual three-quarters of an hour in the "St
Giles at 6" series. I can reasonably call it an annual concert, since
we have done it in ten of the last eleven years. As always, an audience
of several hundred gathered to hear us (admission free) in the wonderful
atmosphere and acoustic of the great building.
- Saturday 15th December in Cranshaws Parish Church - another free concert,
this time in a small and lovely church in the borders. The audience came
from far and wide, and packed the pews, and afterwards enjoyed the village's
hospitality in the village hall.
- Wednesday 12th December in Priestfield Parish Church, the tenth year that
we have sung a Christmas programme there. As in every other year, we were
well received by an ample audience, who continue to buy tickets in spite
of having heard us so often before. Since the ticket money goes into the
church's reconstruction fund, this must be a Good Thing.
- Saturday 8th December in Rosslyn Chapel - sold out three weeks in advance!
Our first full Christmas concert of the year, introducing some new repertoire
- John Tavener and Morton Lauridsen at one extreme, and Winter Wonderland
at the other, and a bucolic Apple Tree Wassail. A very good-humoured (even
before the interval glass of wine) audience, and record sales of CDs, tell
us that we kept up the established standard and got the season off to a
good start.
- Thursday 6th December in Glasgow
Cathedral: one spot in a very grand - and packed - concert in support
of Cancer Research UK. We
can now say that we have shared a bill with royalty, because one of the
readings was by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. Also on the programme were Richard
Wilson, Magnus Linklater, Blythe Duff, Carol Smillie, David Robertson, and
the Lord Advocate. None of them actually sang, so I might claim without
disrespect that we held our own. And so we really would have done, except
that one of the musical spots was contributed by the incomparable Michael
Chance. We felt fortunate to have performed before he came
on.
- Friday 30th November, singing as background music at a private function
in The
Mansfield Traquair in Edinburgh. It was a novel experience for most
of us to sing at an event where scarcely anybody paused to listen to us,
or even cast a glance in our direction. All the same, it is a spectacular
venue with an excellent acoustic which brought out our best. We enjoyed
ourselves, and so did all the guests at the function. From the very complimentary
reports we got afterwards, we had not really been unheard and unnoticed.
- Saturday 6th October in Juniper Green Parish Church Hall. A free concert
commissioned as part of Juniper Green's 300th year celebration, with a very
welcoming audience who had (mostly) not heard us before, and accordingly
were keen to buy our CDs. To reflect the pretext for the event, we sang
mostly songs with a Scottish connection. Fortunately there are plenty of
those in our back catalogue; but, with plenty of new singers, there is nothing
dusty or routine about how we perform them.
- Saturday 22nd September in the
Swallow Theatre , Whithorn. We have been coming to the Swallow Theatre
since 1998, and our concerts there have always been a joy, with a warm and
hospitable welcome and a good audience. This was no exception, but it was
distinguished as Ollie's first full length concert and the first visit to
Whithorn for several of us - and a first outing for much new repertoire.
It all went very well, and the fun continued through the post-concert party
(lavishly provided by our hosts), and the now-traditional walk to St Ninian's
Cave the next morning, to lunch in the famous Steam
Packet in Isle of Whithorn.
- Saturday 1st September. John and Susan's big party to celebrate John's
retirement, Susan's **th birthday, and their **th anniversary. Rudsambee
were there, of course, and singing. In fact, all the music was home-grown,
with a magnificent scratch ceilidh band, Sam's amazing drumming, and Sebastian
and Daniel's jazz. A big thankyou to everybody!
- Sunday 19th August: a free "St Giles at 6" concert, 45 minutes
of singing to an audience of (mostly) tourists and refugees from the Festival
- hundreds of them. They were very appreciative and bought quantities of
CDs.
- Friday 6th July: a joint concert with Svatobor
choir from Sušice in the Czech republic, in Edinburgh's Canongate
Kirk. This was the culmination of Svatobor's three-day visit, and a
resounding success. A gratifyingly large audience supported the occasion
with great enthusiasm. The astonishing quality and variety of Svatobor's
first half was a very hard act to follow; but fortunately our second half
was different enough for comparisons to be irrelevant. Our first venture
upon Ernst Toch's Geographical Fugue had the audience on the edge
of their seats, as they sensed that this was more of a circus event than
a concert item, and that we might fall headlong from the high wire at any
moment - but we got home with never a wobble!
- Thursday 21st June: performing a set in the Edinburgh
French Institute's Fète de la Musique. It was very well received,
and attracted much interest. Allegedly. Your correspondent was lazing about
on the island of Paxos at the time, and cannot vouch for the details.
- Sunday 27th May - we enjoyed a visit from a very entertaining group of
Norwegian singers, Grendakor from Nordås (Bergen). We fed them on
haggis, neeps, tatties and whisky, and we sang the evening away until they
had to depart, far too soon, because of their very early flight home the
next morning. A few photos will give
you the idea.
- Thursday 19th April: our first concert under Ollie's direction. A half-hour
free concert in the National Portrait Gallery, with a packed audience. They
had to bring out more seating to accommodate the crowd, which was partly
(but far from entirely) made up of old friends coming to wish us well and
check that we could still sing. We didn't disappoint them. It went very
well. It was particularly encouraging to get enquiries afterwards from singers
and a choir leader who had never heard us before.
- Sunday 4th March in St Mark's Church, Edinburgh - a group of us sang for
a Songs of Celebration event.
