Holy Trinity Kilmarnock

Another meeting, another stride forward!

Unfortunately at the last minute our exceptionally talented Musical Director, Frikki Walker, wasn't able to rearrange his regular Saturday morning teaching commitments at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) so wasn't able to join us exactly as planned, however fortunately our exceptionally talented Organist, Richard Walmsley, stepped into the breach and took over, so the two of them effectively swapped roles for the day with Frikki arriving early afternoon to play the organ for the last bit of the rehearsals and the service itself!

And what a time we had.  It's always refreshing to be conducted by someone else occasionally, and it was a pleasure to be waved at by Richard.  I personally thought that the choir has again taken a good step forward in standard, and the feedback I've had from both Richard and Frikki was very positive. 

On another personal note it was nice to sing a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis I'd never seen before, although Healey Willan sounds like he should be a sports car not a composer!

The photo is by gordonrasmith.  Well kind of, since he's actually in it and it was taken by a member of the congregation so that Gordon could be in one for a change!

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in the centre of Kilmarnock is an amazing wee building, with wonderful murals, and the welcome we all got was excellent.  Thanks again to our own Pat, Carole and Kat for all that.

And so to the important bit - the pub!  At lunchtime, recommended by Kat and Carole, a crowd went to First Edition nearby, and were impressed enough by it to head there after the service too.  A nice big crowd of choristers, probably around twenty or so of us, managed largely to get round one table, and had a very nice time replacing lost fluid and having a laugh and a joke. 

We also bounced around some ideas for the future, including the choir having our own robes instead of each wearing the robes of our "home" choir, the acquisition of music folders, the choir having its own library of music, and not least - sponsorship.  Possible sponsors were trotted out, like Guinness, Taylor's (RSCM Late Bottled Vintage Scottish Voices?), Tennants (because their logo is almost cruciform!) and Coors (simply because that was what some of us were drinking!), and whilst it was a jokey interlude with quite a lot of laughs, if we are going to seriously consider such things as buying robes and folders (and I think we should think about such things) then we need to think about how we are going to pay for them, and get some discussion going.

RSCM Scottish Voices as an entity has a lot to offer the right sponsor in terms of market penetration and visibility, as there must be loads of brands whose target audience is the demographic of church-goers.  Pimms, Gordons, Interflora, Co-Op Funeral Service etc etc.  OK that last one was a joke, but you get my drift!

Another exciting idea bounced around by Richard, apart from of course him inviting the choir to sing at his wedding in July which is fantastic and which will doubtless be the subject of future posts and many emails from me, was the possibility of going on a week's tour of cathedrals, minsters, abbeys and churches in England, probably as an alternative to a residential rehearsal weekend, and the Yorkshire area was mooted by him as an option.  This would require some serious organisation and would require commitment from enough choristers to make up an effective choir if it were to be considered.  I'd very much welcome feedback on what the choir's thoughts are on that one.

The last four of us left the pub around ten to eight, and I staggered up the road to (just) catch the 8pm train back to Glasgow, with thoughts of money, sponsors, robes, tours, weddings and music libraries revolving round my head until I arrived back home just before 10pm, having set off on the five to eight train that morning.  Quite a long day, but a very rewarding one, and this morning having now reconciled the money, written up the accounts, filled out the bank pay-in slip and emailed the details to the RSCM Scotland Treasurer, completed the attendance spreadsheet, replied to a couple of emails from people who were apologising for not being there, replied to an email from a chorister who is now bowing out of the choir, and posted this entry, I'm not going to do anything relating to RSCM Scottish Voices for the rest of the weekend!  Except I'm going to have a chat with Frikki tonight after Evensong about stuff

Who'd be an administrator is a question which often enters my head I have to confess, but after a day like yesterday a resounding "me!" is the answer I usually come up with, and it's a heartfelt thanks I send to all members of RSCM Scottish Voices for making it ultimately so enjoyable, musically and socially.

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.

Wordle

Over at the Blog of the Provost of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, he has just posted a Wordle.

Wordle describes itself as a toy for generating word clouds based on text input to it and where the result shows words listed in different sizes depending on how often they're used.

Below is the Wordle I just generated from the RSS feed for this Blog, and it's nice to see that Music is central to the theme!

RSCM Scottish Voices Evensong in St Mary's Glasgow

What a great day! The music for Evensong was clearly something special when I was learning it at home, but put all together for the service created a wonderful atmosphere.Truly a "proper" Lenten occasion. Thanks everyone for contributing to this occasion and especially Frikki, Richard and Gary without whom we would not be enjoying these experiences.

Choral Evensong today - roll up roll up!

RSCM Scottish Voices will be singing Choral Evensong today at 4pm in St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, 300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.

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)

Why not come along and take an hour out your busy day to find a place of peace and tranquility amidst glorious music.

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.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to the choir's own Patsy.

I also happen to know that another soprano is celebrating a birthday round about the date of our next meeting in Glasgow, so we should celebrate both after the service!

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.

Different Voices

I was recently contacted by the editor of Different Voices which is a relatively new quarterly magazine, published by the Church of Scotland, about church music in Scotland.

Their website describes it as a magazine for those who: 

• sing in choirs, congregations and praise groups
• play organs or other instruments
• plan and lead the music of the local church in whatever capacity
• write and choose music, songs and hymns for worship, including ministers and clergy
• and all who have a general interest in how the Church worships, what it sings and has sung through all generations.

Published three times a year it costs £12.00 for three issues.  Yes, I too can work out what quarterly means!

Now since the article on their Website features a photo of someone playing a guitar, and this isn't really the type of music that RSCM Scottish Voices is into (he said, rather restrainedly!) I didn't have high hopes that the magazine would be any good, or rather would be of any interest to me.  But Lo and Behold, when the complimentary copy arrived and I had a look through, it's not only very professionally put together there are some interesting articles in it.  I stand corrected then, and at only £12 a year I'd say it was well worth considering subscribing to it.

Choir members reading this - the complimentary copy (which is for the choir, not for me personally) will be with me on Saturday 20th February in St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, our next meeting, so as I said in my email to you all regarding it, have a look at it and decide whether it's something in which you might be interested.  If I forget to mention it (I usually have other things on my mind!) then ask me, because it's already there in my music pigeonhole in the choir room.

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.

Wrong date advertised

I've been advised that some information in the RSCM publication The Network is wrong.  I haven't seen it myself but apparently it states that RSCM Scottish Voices will next meet on 6th January, when in fact it is Saturday 16th January which is the correct date.  For the avoidance of doubt we always meet on Saturdays.

Apologies if this error has mislead anyone, but the information passed to the editor of The Network was correct.

The service, which is open to all to attend, will take place at 4pm, and the church is in the middle of Haddington.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all members of RSCM Scottish Voices, and to all our friends and family.

This is always a busy time for church musicians, and I trust that all the hard work in rehearsals and carol services has paid off and you can soon enjoy a bit of a break.

For members of the choir, it's now only a few weeks to our next meeting at Haddington, the first service of 2010 and the next step in our development, and it looks set to be a good year for us.

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.

Welcome to our new Blog

Welcome to the new Blog of RSCM Scottish Voices, a choir which is part of the Royal School of Church Music and is made up of experienced church choral singers from around Scotland.

The Blog will be used partly as a vehicle for communication within the choir, and partly as a means of publicising what's happening in our world.  That's the initial plan anyway, but things will inevitably change and develop as the fledgling choir grows to fulfil its potential.