Birthday Choral Evensong

On Saturday 31st May 2014 we celebrated five years as a choir by singing Choral Evensong in Paisley Abbey joined by RSCM Young Scottish Voices (the first time they juniors have sung with our adult choir, but not the last!) and members of our sister choirs from England, RSCM Voices North, RSCM Voices South and RSCM Voices West.  We were glad too that the director of the RSCM, Andrew Reid, had accepted our invitation to come and celebrate with us, and he had a brief chat to the massed singers after the rehearsal (and for longer in the pub afterwards).

Andrew Reid (r) chatting to the choir

There were one or two last minute calloffs because of illness, but we still made up a choir of 83 singers under the direction of Frikki Walker, and accompanied on Paisley's majestic organ by Richard Walmsley, who have been respectively our Musical Director and Assistant Musical Director / Organist since we first tentatively met in summer 2008 (our fifth birthday has been calculated from our first actual service, which was in January 2009).

Rehearsals started at midday and right from the off it was obvious that we were going to be making some spectacular noises in the service, but to be honest any service that has Parry's wonderful anthem I was glad as the introit can't fail to be spectacular!  The full music list was

• Introit:         I was glad - Charles Hubert H Parry
• Responses:  Bernard Rose (cantor: Gary Young)
• Psalm:         150 (chant by Charles Villiers Stanford)
• Canticles:    Charles Dyson in D
• Anthems:     This lovely lady sat and song - Bryan Kelly
                       Let all the world  - Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Voluntary:   Carillon de Westminster - Louis Vierne

The weather in the west of Scotland has been lovely and sunny over the past few days, which meant that the Abbey, and Paisley, were looking their best, and if you're going to be stuck indoors on such a lovely day there are many worse buildings to be stuck inside.

The Abbey staff were very welcoming, providing us with refreshments during our short break from rehearsals, and Rev Birss said afterwards he was looking forward to welcoming us back for our 10th anniversary!  I suspect we'll be back sooner though.

The service itself lived up to its promise, and the wee bits during rehearsals where Frikki had been on at us to watch him while he played about with tempi (as he does so effectively) seemed perfect as everyone had clearly taken to heart his promise that he would be changing things on the spur of the moment.  Afterwards we had the obligatory group photo in the sun outside the west door of the Abbey (see below, with the other photos taken by Gordon Smith).

So, to the pub!  RSCM Scottish Voices are a sociable bunch, and took the opportunity of having new friends visiting from England to show them what we do after every service.  Space for around 50 had been reserved in the local Wetherspoons pub, which allowed us to enjoy inexpensive Real Ale, and food on demand!  Everyone seemed to have had a good day, judging by the smiles and laughter, and after several hours gradually we drifted away to our respective homes, hotels, boarding houses, and in at least one case another licenced premises!

The photos below were all taken by RSCM Scottish Voices tenor Gordon Smith (gordonrasmith if you want to look him up on Flickr) and are reproduced here with his kind permission.  If any of the singers from the day would like to access downloadable high quality versions of any photos, contact RSCM Scottish Voices administrator by email and it'll be sorted.

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

photo by gordonrasmith

RSCM Scottish Voices crosses Hadrian's Wall

York Minster

At the weekend members of RSCM Scottish Voices travelled over the border to make a foray into England to sing for the first time as a choir.  Well, 20 of us did.  Numbers were limited because we were joining with the other three, longer established, RSCM Voices choirs who regularly get together every couple of years or so to sing a big Choral Evensong in a Cathedral somewhere in England, in this instance it was York Minster.  Simply because of logistics not everyone in each choir could fit into the space available, big though it is, so spaces were limited to about 20 singers each (a few more than that if the top line were trebles and not adult sopranos) making a choir of something like 104 singers.  So the 20 singers to represent RSCM Scottish Voices were duly chosen by our Musical Director, Frikki Walker, to form a balanced ensemble, and I was lucky enough to be one of those who could go (although being the administrator I'd have gone anyway just to listen and show face even if I hadn't been chosen to sing).

The service was on the bank holiday Monday (May Day) and we all made our own separate ways there, some going down a good few days early to make the most of the trip, some going there and back on the day itself, and many dragging along long-suffering partners with them!  After a most enjoyable circuitous route zigzagging by motorcycle through the borders I arrived in York on the Sunday afternoon just in time to check into the hotel and wander over for the Minster Choir's Choral Evensong when they sang Ayleward Responses (a favourite of mine), Dyson in D Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (standard repertoire but very enjoyable nonetheless) and Ye choirs of new Jerusalem by Stanford (which RSCM Scottish Voices sang the previous week in Old Saint Paul's Church in Edinburgh - and dare I say it our sopranos sounded better in the opening phrase "the paschal victory to hymn in strains of holy joy" at the bit where tradition dictates most choirs squeak out and clip short the top G on the first syllable of the word "victory").  The sound the Minster choir made was magnificent, particularly the men, a glorious rounded luxuriant noise.  Great stuff!

The hotel I and two others were staying in was the Guy Fawkes Inn, straight across from the south west corner of the Minster in High Petergate, and it's built on the site of the building in which Guy Fawkes was born and right next to the church in which he was baptised - St Michael le Belfrey.  It's a Real Ale pub and the beer, food, accommodation and staff were all excellent and to be recommended.  In fact, if you follow the link to the church the photo on Wikipedia of the front of the church (at the time of writing this) shows the Guy Fawkes Inn to its right.

So to the day of the service, and after two of us had a nice long walk together round the city walls doing the touristy bit in the morning we all assembled at 1pm in St William's College, a 15th century Tudor building directly to the east of the Minster.  Once the mundane things like seating arrangements were over we started a fairly short rehearsal under the direction of Gordon Appleton, Director of RSCM Voices North and RSCM Regional Music Adviser for the north of England (well, for the moment he is, since he's about to retire which was partly the reason for this service being on his patch and under his direction).

York Minster and the city walls

After a short'ish break we continued the rehearsal in the Minster but surprisingly and slightly disappointingly to me the decision was taken that we wouldn't robe for this (I always think that robing while rehearsing in choirstalls is to be encouraged), and we got through all the music (although despite it being a long psalm it was actually less than we normally would sing in an RSCM Scottish Voices service simply because there was no Introit).

Another very short break (during which the battle for access to the toilets commenced!) and we were then into the service of Choral Evensong itself.  It takes a lot to pull a choir that size together in such a short space of time, and rather enjoyably pretty much all of the wee odd rough edges of the rehearsal disappeared as the choir produced a very pleasing sound, and Gordon Appleton came into his own with some very animated directing while standing on a box so those furthest from him (that would be me then) had a sporting chance of seeing a beat to follow!  Oh, and the priest singing the responses was none other than Richard Shephard!

Congregationally it was a pretty full Quire (for those reading this who aren't familiar with cathedral architecture and nomenclature that's the name for the part of the building in which we were singing, not a dreadful typo!) and afterwards I didn't quite manage to find and speak to all those I'd have liked to, but I did manage to finally meet Sue Snell, the RSCM's Head of Education, who has always been unfailingly helpful in email correspondence.  It's good to put a face to an email address!

The great and the good then disappeared off to an official function, where I'm given to understand that Lord Gill, Chairman of the RSCM Council, made special mention of RSCM Scottish Voices in his speech, and I'm also told that it had been noticed that RSCM Scottish Voices singers acquitted ourselves admirably!  One comment I got from a VERY experienced church musician who was in the congregation and whose opinion I respect 100% was "all in all a great event".

I'm neither great nor good, so along with most of the Scottish contingent I went across the road to the Guy Fawkes Inn, where we had food and drink and good company well into the night.

As I said at the start of this post, this is the first time we've been invited to one of these events, and it was really nice to be asked.  It was a real shame that we couldn't take everyone in the choir, but that was all out of our hands, however those who were there represented the choir well and I have no doubt we'll be asked again and hopefully might be in a position to take more singers along.

Dunblane (short) report

The service of Evening Prayer at Dunblane Cathedral on Saturday 5th March went very well, and the whole day, directed by Richard Walmsley and accompanied by Matthew Beetschen, was enjoyable not only musically but socially too, as we went to the Tappit Hen pub across from the Cathedral afterwards.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 21st May in the lovely setting of St Mary's Parish Church in Haddington, just east of Edinburgh, and the service will be at 4pm.  Type of service, music lists etc will be posted in due course.

Now, having sung at Dunblane, banked money, updated spreadsheets, reconciled finance, sent out emails relating to found music copies and missing name badges, written articles for the RSCM publication CMQ and the forthcoming RSCM Scotland Newsletter and the magazine Different Voices, completed Event Registration Forms for our August and September meetings, and finally updated this website, I'm ready to not look at ANY RSCM Scottish Voices stuff for a week or two!  Except I need to try to get the music list notified for Haddington and I need to start thinking about the arrangements for our residential rehearsal weekend in August, not least who and how many will be there and therefore how much it'll cost each of us.  Oh well, I might get a couple of days away from it!

Paisley report

On Saturday RSCM Scottish Voices visited Thomas Coats Memorial Baptist Church in Paisley (TCM) where at their request we sang Choral Evensong and were made to feel very welcome indeed by their organist Matthew Edwards and various members of the church who kindly provided us with tea and biscuits whenever we stopped singing for more than a couple of minutes.

A very heartfelt thanks from all in the choir for the excellent hospitality, and it was good to see between 30-40 people in the congregation on such a cold foggy evening!

The setting of TCM is spectacular, and I commend the Blog post of Pencefn, one of our own choir members, who describes the building and a bit of its history.

Musically it felt good, and according to Frikki Walker, our Musical Director, every time we meet we continue to get a little bit better, so the future still looks bright.

After the service a fairly big crowd of choir and friends managed to squeeze into one of the snugs at the rear of The Bull Inn, the oldest pub in Paisley, where we enjoyed good Real Ale and tasty food, and socialised for several hours.

All in all another good day, and a good start to 2011.

Our next service is on Saturday 5th March 2011 at 4pm in Dunblane Cathedral.  Full details of the music will appear here in due course, so watch this space.

Forfar

Our most recent meeting was a very successful one at St John's Episcopal Church in Forfar on 11th September.  That date resonates round the world in its better known format of 9/11, so music was specially chosen by Frikki to commemorate the 9th anniversary of the events of 2001.

Unfortunately at very short notice Richard Walmsley had to pull out of the service, but luckily we were joined by Revd Rupert Jeffcoat, whose stunning playing left me grinning widely on more than one occasion! I have no doubt that Rupert will be joining us again.

A family commitment, well, committal if the truth be told, meant I couldn't be there for the morning rehearsal so I wasn't able to sing in the service, however this meant that for the first time I was able to hear what RSCM Scottish Voices actually sounds like from a congregational perspective.  And not only was I not disappointed, I was very very impressed!

For some time now both Frikki and Richard have been saying how pleased they both are with the way the choir has developed in the fairly short time since we started, and while in response I've been nodding my head and agreeing, secretly I've been thinking "what are they talking about, it's OK but it's not as brilliant as you guys are making out".  Well I now realise that they have had the benefit of not being in the midst of all the singers so have been able to hear the overall sound.  And they have been right all along!  OK, this is the choir site, and I am the choir administrator, so it's forgiveable if I try to talk up our capabilities on this forum.  But I don't need to talk them up.  RSCM Scottish Voices is actually a very good choir, particularly given the short time it's been in existence, and the paltry 13 times we've met each other to sing together.

Not only that, but the introit actually moved me to tears.  It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of John L Bell's musical style, but his anthem There is a place, written to commemorate the victims of the Dunblane massacre of 1996 when gunman Thomas Hamilton murdered sixteen children and a teacher, just hit the spot.  OK, again emotionally I was in a strange place, having been scattering the ashes of a close and much loved family member that morning, but the choir sang beautifully and very movingly.

And inevitably, following the service a large crowd of us wandered a short way to the Queens Tavern, where some good beer and food was consumed.  As tradition dictates.

All in all, a good day for the choir.

City of Discovery and wine

Another good day was had by all.

Last weekend saw RSCM Scottish Voices sing Choral Evensong in St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Dundee, and leaving aside the visits to two churches and a cathedral where some of our own members sing, this had to be the warmest welcome yet, and it was certainly the biggest congregation!

And not only that, one of the cathedral choir expressed an interest in joining us, so had an audition pretty much there and then, so welcome to the choir Paul!

The enthusiasm with which my initial approach to the Cathedral's Pastoral Musician, Stuart Muir, was met last year, was matched by the generous welcome we received from all at Dundee, from the tea, coffee and cakes we were fed on arrival, to the wine, sandwiches, wine, snacks and wine to which we were treated at the end of the service.  Thanks folks, it was appreciated by all the choir, and was very much talked about in the pub afterwards!

The pub we went to was DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) a few minutes walk from the Cathedral, which was bright, airy, comfortable, and served alcohol, so it was a winner.  The crowd who went there wasn't quite as big as normally go out to play after our services, and we didn't stay as long as normal, but that can be attributed to the generous amount of wine provided by the cathedral after the service, negating the need for more booze, and also the fact that a few of the regular pub attendees were missing from the day for perfectly valid reasons ranging from the writing of the final bit of a Thesis, being in Orkney working at the St Magnus Festival, the work-related requirement to speak to Housing Association Tenants about central heating at an Open Day, and probably the best excuse being the impending delivery of Nic and Carson's first child (which is actually due today but at the time of writing this appears not to have happened yet [although I'm currently relying on Facebook updates for my info] - an announcement will doubtless follow in due course!).

Two of us were staying in Dundee overnight, so we went for a good look round the city the next day, finding a pub in which to watch the Italy v New Zealand football game in the afternoon.  The one-all draw against the current World Cup Holders was as good as winning the World Cup itself for New Zealand, much to Ruth's delight!

Dundee is a really nice arty city, with lots of little statues and artworks dotted about the streets, and it's well worth a visit.  Patrticularly good was the Discovery Exhibition, which was exceptionally well presented.  Go there, next time you get a chance.

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.

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!

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.