2017-18 music list

The music list for the next 12 months has just today been finalised and announced, and we're really looking forward to a lovely balance of revisiting some previously performed classics and learning pieces we've never sung before. Please do come along to any of the services if you're in the area.

All of it is contained on our "future services and events" page on this site, but is reproduced below.


7th October 2017
St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow
Choral Evensong at 4pm
Director: James Kealey
Organist: Christopher Nickol

Introit: O pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Herbert Howells)
Responses: Bernard Rose
Psalm: 37 vv 1-11
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in F (Peter Aston)
Anthem: Evening Hymn (Henry Balfour-Gardiner)

11th November 2017
St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Dundee
Choral Evensong for Remembrance at 4pm
Director: Frikki Walker
Organist: Kevin Duggan

Introit: The souls of the righteous (Herbert Murrill)
Responses: John Bertalot
Psalms: 60 & 61
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in F (George Dyson)
Anthem: Though I speak with the tongues of men (Edward Cuthbert Bairstow)
Vesper: For the fallen (Douglas Guest)


17th February 2018
Bothwell Parish Church
Unaccompanied Choral Evensong in Mediaeval Quire at 4pm
Directors: Frikki Walker & Kevin Duggan

Introit: This is the day which the Lord hath made (Anonymous, probably Osbert Parsley)
Responses: Richard Ayleward
Psalm: 43 (Scottish Paraphrase - tune: Martyrs)
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis First Service (Robert Parsons)
Anthem: Hear the voice and prayer (Thomas Tallis)


24th March 2018
St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow
Chrism Mass at 4pm
Director: Frikki Walker
Organist: Kevin Duggan

Setting: Communion Service in G (Francis Jackson)
Motet: A new commandment (Peter Nardone)
Motet: Let all mortal flesh keep silence (Edward Cuthbert Bairstow)

19th May 2018
Durham Cathedral
Choral Evensong at 5.15pm
Director: Frikki Walker
Organist: Kevin Duggan

Responses: Herbert Sumsion
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in B flat (Sir John Stainer)
Anthem: Though I speak with the tongues of men (Edward Cuthbert Bairstow)

RSCM Music Sunday

RSCM Music Sunday and the end of Glasgow's West End Festival 2011 will be marked on Sunday 26th June when members of RSCM Scottish Voices join with members of St Mary's Cathedral Choir, Glasgow Chamber Choir and Glasgow University Chapel Choir in a spectacular Choral Evensong accompanied by the St Mary's Cathedral Festival Orchestra, all conducted by our Musical Director Frikki Walker.

In addition to orchestral music being played before and after the service, the music to be sung, all in their exciting orchestrated versions, will be:

• Responses: Richard Shephard
• Psalm 122: I was Glad (Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
• Canticles: Sir Charles Villiers Stanford in B flat
• Anthem: Blessed city, Heavenly Salem (Sir Edward Cuthbert Bairstow)
• Te Deum: Sir Charles Villiers Stanford in B flat

More details about RSCM Music Sunday can be found on the main RSCM website by clicking here, and the website of St Mary's Cathedral can be found here.

Easter Sequence

The next time you can hear RSCM Scottish Voices sing is at 4pm on Saturday 21st May 2011 in St Mary's Parish Church in Haddington when we shall be taking part in an Easter Sequence with music including:

• Gaudete Omnes – Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
• O God thou art my God - Henry Purcell
• Surgens Jesus - Peter Philips
• Morning Glory, starlit sky - Barry Rose
• O Sons and Daughters Let us Sing – Henry Walford Davies
• Hymn: This Joyful Eastertide – Charles Wood
• Hymn: Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem [tune: St Fulbert]
• Psalm: The Easter Anthems

Dunblane music list

The next service in which you can hear RSCM Scottish Voices sing is on Saturday 5th March 2011 at 4pm when we will be taking part in Evening Prayer in the wonderful surroundings of Dunblane Cathedral which dates back in parts to the 13th century.

The music list, hot off the press, is:

We wait for Thy Loving kindness (William McKie)
Magnificat in e minor (Daniel Purcell)
Praise our Lord, all ye gentiles (William Byrd)
Gaudete Omnes (Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck)

Due to the unavailability of our Musical Director Frikki Walker who will be in Sheffield that weekend conducting one of his other choirs in the semi final of the Songs of Praise School Choir of the Year competition, for this service RSCM Scottish Voices will be directed by Richard Walmsley (Organist and Master of the Choristers at St Ninian's Episcopal Cathedral in Perth) and accompanied on the organ by Matthew Beetschen (Musical Director and Organist of Dunblane Cathedral, and Chair of RSCM Scotland).

The Baptist Cathedral of Europe

Update 01/12/2010 - This service has been cancelled due to poor weather conditions and the breakdown of the heating in the church

The next meeting of RSCM Scottish Voices, the last of 2010, will be at 4pm on Saturday 4th December in

Thomas Coats Memorial Baptist Church 

High Street

Paisley

PA1 2BA

As a non-denominational choir, as indeed is the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) a non-denominational Christian organisation, we aim to take part in services relevant to the denomination of the church, cathedral or abbey we're visiting, but on this occasion although it's a Baptist Church we have been asked specifically to sing Choral Evensong, so that's what we're doing, and the music list is:

• Introit: Let all mortal flesh keep silence - Sir Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
• Responses: John Bertalot (b.1931)
• Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in B flat - Sir John Stainer (1840-1901)
• Anthem: And I saw a new heaven -Edgar Bainton (1880-1956)
• Vesper: In Pace - William Blitheman (c1525-1591)
• Final Voluntary: Postlude in D minor - Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

As I mentioned in a previous post, Thomas Coats Memorial was built by the prominent local Coats family who were major benefactors in Paisley, and it's unofficially referred to as the Baptist Cathedral of Europe.  It's a fine building, with a wonderful organ, and a great acoustic, so to sum up the service:

Big Victorian Church + Big Victorian Music = Fun for all the family!

Dundee

St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Dundee this coming Saturday is the next occasion when you can hear RSCM Scottish Voices sing.

The service of Choral Evensong starts at 4pm, lasts probably a bit less than an hour, and the music we will be singing is:

Introit: Jubilate Deo in C (Benjamin Britten)
Responses: William Smith of Durham
Canticles: Daniel Purcell in e minor
Anthem: Ye choirs of new Jerusalem (Sir Charles Villiers Stanford)

The Cathedral can be found at 1 High St, Dundee DD1 1TD.

The service should be good, so why not come along and hear us.

St Paul's Cathedral

In about seven weeks from now, on Saturday 19th June at 4pm, RSCM Scottish Voices will be singing Choral Evensong in St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, 1 High Street, Dundee DD1 1TD.

The music list is:

Introit: Jubilate Deo in C (Benjamin Britten)
Responses: William Smith of Durham
Canticles: Daniel Purcell in e minor
Anthem: Ye choirs of new Jerusalem (Charles Villiers Stanford)

For choir note-learning purposes I've found a couple of performances on YouTube.

The first video below is of the choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor performing the Britten Jubilate (which was written for them at the request of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1961).  It appears to be a bit of an advert for the choir school, but if you want to skip the speaky bits, fast forward to about 2min 9sec and the music starts soon after that.  And bloody good they are too, unsurprisingly.

The second video is Stanford's Ye choirs of new Jerusalem, sung by the choir of New College, Oxford.

The Smith Responses and Purcell Canticles have been sung before by us.

Kilmarnock music list

The next meeting of RSCM Scottish Voices will be this coming Saturday, 17th April 2010, at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 1 Dundonald Road, Kilmarnock KA1 1EQ and Choral Evensong will take place at 4pm, lasting around an hour.

The music list, hot off the press this afternoon, is:

Introit: This Joyful Eastertide (Anon - arranged Wood)
Responses: William Smith of Durham
Psalm: 89 vv1-19
Canticles: Healey Willan in E flat
Anthem: Sing Joyfully (William Byrd)

I've found the following on YouTube, which may be of some use for giving the choir an idea of what some of the music sounds like, as a rehearsal aid.  You have to go to 4minutes 8seconds on the Westminster Abbey one to get to the Smith, and it's only the first part (the Preces) they sing.  Part of the second bit (the Responses) is on the next video down, and I couldn't find the rest of it!

Oh, and just for Ruth, Sing Joyfully is performed by a New Zealand choir!

FAQs

I've recently had a few emails from choir members worried that they've missed an email from me giving details of the next meeting of RSCM Scottish Voices on Saturday 17th April at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Kilmarnock.

Just to set your minds at rest, the answers to the FAQs are:

• Yes I know it's now less than two weeks away
  
  
• No, the music list has not yet been finalised, it's being worked on at the moment
  
  
• Yes, I know it is now too late for everyone to source their own copies and if music is chosen that you don't already have, then it will be provided to you on the day

That's about it for the moment!

I know that's a bit jokey, but in all seriousness, the lead up to Lent and then Easter is a frenetic time for choirmasters, and it's only today that there's been a window of opportunity to have the music list worked on by Frikki who is an expert in that field (amongst others) and always takes time to painstakingly and carefully make sure the service hangs together well and the chosen music fits with each other and with the theme of the liturgical season.

I have an email all typed up and ready to go out containing the details of where and when, and the main thing I'm waiting on is the music list so I can include it all in one go.  The timings on the day are exactly as normal, and it's in the centre of Kilmarnock.  More will follow by email.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Backlog no more

In my previous post I mentioned the backlog of music from the RSCM Online store.

Yesterday when I arrived home from work there was a nice A4 envelope waiting for me, containing the last piece for which I was waiting, Salvator Mundi, by John Blow.

So hopefully everyone should have all their own copies in time for Saturday at St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow.

Music backlog

The music for our next meeting, which is on Saturday 20th February at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, is all available from the RSCM Online Store, but there was some of it out of stock when I ordered mine on 18th January.

Today I received a reply to my email which had asked them when the due date was, and the reply said:

"The copies of the Blow are due this week so should be with you, and the numerous people awaiting copies, early next week all being well"

So they should be arriving with you from Monday 15th February. 

That was the only one out of stock when I placed my order, so that was the only one I queried but I suppose some of the other stuff which I didn't need to order might not have been available, but I didn't ask about that.  In any case, they say that out of stock items usually take around a fortnight to arrive, so there shouldn't be any problem for any of it.

Blow and Greene rehearsal aids

Thanks to Patsy for pointing us in the direction of YouTube to find rehearsal aids for our next meeting in St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow in about 3 weeks!

Below you will find the videos she mentioned in her comment. The Blow in particular is handy as the images are of the sheet music!

Just click on the big triangle in the middle of each frame below to play the video.

Glasgow, February 2010

The next event for RSCM Scottish Voices is a full Choral Evensong on the first Saturday in Lent, which is 20th February 2010, in St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, 300 Great Western Road, Glasgow at 4pm.

The music list is:

Introit: Salvator Mundi - John Blow (1649-1708)
Responses: Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
Canticles: Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in e minor -  Daniel Purcell (1664-1717)
Anthem: Lord, let me know mine end - Maurice Greene (1696-1755)

Afterwards we shall retire to the nearby Lansdowne Bar for an after-service fluid replacement session!

It should be a very good service, not only because the choir continues to improve and gel together, but also because it's Lent, the season leading up to Easter, and the penitential music relevant to that season of the church always tends to be rather lovely in my humble opinion.

The choir still has a few vacancies for singers, so if you are aged 18 or over, live in Scotland, have experience in church choral singing, and would like to be considered for an audition or would like more information, please contact the choir administrator at scottishvoices@rscmscotland.org for an application form.

Holders of RSCM Bronze, Silver or Gold awards need not audition, but should contact the administrator for further details.

Haddington report

The choir continues to develop and grow in corporate ability, as yesterday's service in Haddington showed.

There were a lot of call offs, partly due to the weather and partly for other reasons, so a smaller choir than usual, consisting of nine sopranos, three altos, four tenors, and six basses, turned up at the incredibly beautiful and historic St Mary's Parish Church at 10am to be fed tea, coffee and biscuits by the the very friendly ladies of the parish.  We then walked a few hundred yards to the Trinity Centre, the church hall of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, where we rehearsed in the morning to allow our organist to rehearse on the splendid looking organ in St Mary's church.  As it happened, we didn't need to decamp, because our regular organist Richard Walmsley couldn't make it so at very short notice Matthew Beetschen, organist of Dunblane Cathedral and chair of the RSCM Scotland committee, stepped ably into the breach but he didn't arrive until lunchtime so we could have rehearsed in the church after all.  Not to worry.

The music was very slightly different to that advertised in my previous post, and consisted of:

Hymn: O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (tune: Was Lebet)
Anthem: O magnum mysterium (Tomas Luis da Victoria)
Hymn: How brightly beams the morning star (tune: Wie Schön Leuchtet, harmony by J S Bach)
Anthem: In a byre near Bethlehem (Irish trad, arranged by John L Bell and Frikki Walker)
Anthem: Bethlehem Down (Peter Warlock)
Hymn: New light has dawned (I think the tune was by Peter Barnard, but apologies if that's wrong!)
Anthem: Lo! Star led chiefs (William Crotch)
Hymn: Of the Father's love begotten (tune: Divinum Mysterium)

Of all of the above, personally my highlight was the Victoria anthem which is very atmospheric and very beautiful.  The lowlight?  Well, for me the jury's still out on the New light has dawned hymn which I didn't quite get to grips with and I suspect I wasn't the only one.  It went well enough, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.  Still, if everything was perfect it'd be a boring world I guess!

A nice surprise for me was the William Crotch anthem, because it was one I've never heard before, and it's a wee gem.  Lots of fun to sing.

RSCM Scottish Voices is still a new choir, and we've only met some half dozen times so far.  For the first wee while the focus was just on a rehearsal day with a small service tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought, but that's the nature of starting up such a choir consisting of people who don't already know each other and who don't meet to rehearse on a weekly basis.  The first services weren't advertised in any way and so were put on pretty much just for ourselves to round off the day of rehearsing, and the first actual congregation I think we had was a single person at the service at the end of our residential weekend in Musselburgh last year. We had a small handful at St Ninian's Cathedral in Perth last September, and a similar sized group at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh in November.  Yesterday though we had over 20 in the congregation which, while clearly is a small number of people in the grand scheme of things, was the biggest number to whom we've sung so far.  Numbers aren't the target of course, but it was nice to see them.

Performance wise, our Musical Director Frikki Walker was pleased with the way it went and how we sounded.  We continue to develop and progress, and things are still looking good for the future.

So that's all very well, but what about afterwards?

About 100 yards along from the front gate of the church is a pub called the Tyneside Tavern, sitting next to an old mill on the river Tyne.  I'd already identified it from the CAMRA Good Beer Guide as a good place to go, and we weren't disappointed.  A good turn out of choir members, maybe 20 people, and the beer and craic were good as was the food a few of us had a bit later.  With very friendly staff, and the lounge bar pretty much to ourselves, I could have stayed there all night, but sadly had to travel back west to home!

Haddington 2010

The next meeting of RSCM Scottish Voices will be a service in St Mary's Parish Church in Haddington, East Lothian at 4pm on Saturday 16th January 2010.  That's a week tomorrow.

Music will include:

Bethlehem Down (Warlock); O Magnum Mysterium (Victoria); Lo star-led chiefs (Crotch); The Coventry Carol (trad arr Willcocks); There is a star (trad Spiritual); How brightly beams the morning star (Bach).

As ever we will be conducted by Frikki Walker, and accompanied by Richard Walmsley.

It'd be great to see a nice big congregation in this lovely historic church, which is in Sidegate, Haddington EH41 4BZ.

On their Website, they describe how to find the church as:

The market town of Haddington is 20 miles East of Edinburgh along the A1 dual carriageway.  Travelling East take the second exit to Haddington - St Mary's is signposted from the main road.  Look to the South, and you will see the old church tower in the distance.

The choir still has some vacancies for singers, so if you are aged 18 or over, are resident in Scotland, have experience in church choral singing, and would like to be considered for an audition or would like more information, please contact the choir administrator at scottishvoices@rscmscotland.org for an application form.

Holders of RSCM Bronze, Silver or Gold awards need not audition, but should contact the administrator for further details.

Edinburgh, November 2009

Although the photo, taken by gordonrasmith, is from our summer residential weekend back in August, our most recent service took place last Saturday, 28th November, at 4pm in St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, when we sang Choral Evensong.

The music list was:

Introit: Hear my Prayer - Henry Purcell
Responses: John Sanders
Psalms: 137 & 138
Canticles: Hugh Blair in b minor
Anthem: Hail Gladdening Light - Charles Wood
Hymn:  Ye Holy Angels Bright (NEH 475), Tune: Darwall's 148th (James Darwall), Descant by Frikki Walker.

RSCM Scottish Voices is a choir made up of choristers from a variety of church choirs around Scotland, and we only meet on the day of a service, with no rehearsals in between apart from a residential rehearsal weekend once a year in the summer.  So that means we need to work pretty hard on the day of a service to not only polish or indeed sometimes learn the music, but also to get used again to singing with each other.  That might sound odd to non-choristers but anyone who's ever joined an ad-hoc choir will understand it.

So at 10am on a freezing cold Saturday morning we all met outside the rather beautifully decorated Song School, with its murals by Phoebe Traquair, before the choir administrator found the vergers' office and got us access to the building.

A couple of hours of rehearsal, including in the Cathedral itself, and we broke for lunch for an hour or so, and then reassembled for more rehearsal.  I believe various lunch options were tried, ranging from home made sandwiches, through Greggs the bakers, to local pubs!

There was a concert later that evening in the Cathedral, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and we had to fit in with the rehearsal times for that so we had limited time in the Cathedral immediately before Evensong, but Frikki Walker, our exceptionally talented Musical Director, managed to top and tail everything that was needed.  Our organist is Richard Walmsley but he was engaged in a rehearsal for the following day's live BBC Radio 4 broadcast of Sunday Worship from his home church, St Ninian's Episcopal Cathedral in Perth, so at fairly short notice we were joined and very ably accompanied by Geoff Bolton, a work colleague of Richard's.

Two of the clergy of the cathedral joined us for Evensong, and made us feel very welcome, as indeed had the verger earlier in the day.  The service went pretty well and the one or two slightly scary moments from the rehearsals seemed to pass uneventfully!

And so the official part of the day was over.

Many of us had travelled by public transport, and so we moved onto the next bit of the day, the all important after service fluid replacement session!

One of our choristers lives in Edinburgh (and sings in the choir of the rather lovely Old St Paul's Episcopal Church) and she recommended a local hotel, the Edinburgh Thistle Hotel in nearby Manor Place, on the basis that since Scotland had been playing Argentina at Rugby at nearby Murrayfield Stadium then most of the local pubs would be very busy but the hotel might be a bit quieter. 

She was right to recommend it. 

Good beer, a good atmosphere, and the Wales v Australia Rugby game on a big screen, watched by a decent sized and very good natured crowd consisting largely of, I was repeatedly told by more than one of our sopranos and altos, very good looking men!

Inevitably not all choir members will make it to the socialising afterwards, although all are invited, but out of the roughly 30 choristers who had sung Evensong there must have been almost 20 in the bar afterwards, albeit split into three groups because of the available seating.

A few beers, wines, port & brandies, and gin & tonics later, not to mention the baguettes filled with sausage consumed towards the end of the evening, and the last 4 of us of us left the hotel heading for the 9pm train from Haymarket to Glasgow, which we caught with perfect timing, despite some rather unsteady walking!  A portion or two of the best that Burger King had to offer at Glasgow Central Station, where we'd all walked to continue the last legs of our journeys home after arriving at Queen Street from Edinburgh and we went our separate ways.

A long day, but a fine day of music making and. most importantly, friendship.

RSCM Scottish Voices as a choir is in its very early days, and still has much of its musical potential to fulfil, but fulfil it we will with a great deal of determination by its members, and an enormous amount of skill, enthusiasm, fun and professionalism by our Music Director Frikki Walker, assisted by our fine organist Richard Walmsley.  But there's more to a choir than just music, vitally important as that is, and in the brief year since we were founded, and having met each other less than ten times, we have already bonded together and many good friendships have been forged, and that makes a firm foundation for some excellent music making.

If you are over 18, live in Scotland, have choral experience, and are looking for a choir that meets around half a dozen times a year for a day each time to sing in a variety of churches and cathedrals around Scotland (with the associated socialising of course), then you could do a lot worse than to audition for RSCM Scottish Voices.  Contact the administrator if you want more details or want to arrange an audition. 

Go on, you won't regret it.