| Date | Location | Venue | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/12/15 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | |
| 2024/12/14 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church, Castle Terrace | |
| 2024/10/26 | Paisley | Paisley Abbey | |
| 2024/10/26 | Bridge of Weir | St Machar’s Ranfurly Church | |
| 2024/09/08 | Dunblane | Dunblane Cathedral | |
| 2024/08/18 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | |
| 2024/04/28 | Dunfermline | Dunfermline Abbey | We very much enjoyed our first visit to Dunfermline Abbey – a beautiful building, lovely acoustic and appreciative audience. There was consternation beforehand however when our one and only second tenor sent a message to say he’d had to take his son to A&E with a suspected broken arm and might not make it! Fortunately he arrived with 10 minutes to spare and, even more fortunately, it turned out his son’s arm wasn’t actually broken, in spite of the pain and swelling. |
| 2024/04/20 | Edinburgh | Church of the Sacred Heart, Tollcross | Our first concert of 2024 was also our first performance in the beautiful space and wonderful acoustic of the Church of the Sacred Heart in Lauriston Street. Our theme was Spring – Old and New with pieces spanning the centuries, including three different takes on the legend of the dying swan’s last and only song from Arcadelt, Gibbons and (personal favourite!) Bob Chilcott.
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| 2023/12/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | Ian had a prior engagement but he arranged for Kevin Duggan, the Director of Music at Dunblane Cathedral, to take his place. There was a huge audience for another excellent concert – thank you Kevin! |
| 2023/12/09 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | Our first concert under the direction of Ian Munro – we sang to an enthusiastic full house, an excellent start to what we hope will be a long and fruitful partnership. |
| 2023/07/18 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | after an absence of many years we were back in the wonderful acoustic of the National Portrait Gallery for Derrick Morgan’s last concert as our musical director. |
| 2023/06/10 | Haddington | St Mary’s Parish Church | singing again in St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington in the St Mary’s at 4 series. |
| 2022/12/17 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | a second Christmas concert in Rosslyn Chapel. |
| 2022/12/11 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | Christmas concert in St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh. |
| 2022/08/13 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | in St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh in the St Giles’ at 6 series. The large and appreciative audiences are back; as is the pleasure of sharing our music with them. |
| 2022/06/19 | Haddington | St Mary’s Parish Church | singing in beautiful and ancient St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington in the St Mary’s at 4 series. After the Covid hiatus (and some concerts prepared but cancelled at the last moment), this was our first public performance since December 2019. |
| 2019/12/08 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a St Giles’ at six concert. |
| 2019/12/07 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | our Christmas concert in the amazing and historic Rosslyn Chapel, all seats taken and even the cat demanding to be let in. Music from Poulenc to plygain. Mince pies and wine in the interval. What better way to begin the Christmas season? |
| 2019/10/11 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | in Priestfield Parish Church – singing a set of five numbers as guests in a concert by the admirable Edinburgh Mandolin and Guitar Orchestra who attracted a large and enthusiastic audience. |
| 2019/08/20 | Edinburgh | Old St Paul’s Church | in Old St Paul’s Church. |
| 2019/08/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 45 minutes of song in the St Giles’ at Six series. Hundreds were attracted by a free concert with shelter from the persistent rain and refuge from the milling crowds of tourist/festival/fringe visitors. Happily we were able to keep them entertained, and they were lavish in their thanks. This was our “women composers” repertoire, including for the first time two challenging numbers which might have added a frisson of tension and excitement to the audience’s experience. What they added to mine is not to be told here. |
| 2019/06/15 | Corstorphine | Corstorphine Old Parish Church | a concert in Corstorphine Old Parish Church in support of the Rett Syndrome Research Trust. This year’s “women composers” repertoire was chosen to reflect the fact that Rett Syndrome is diagnosed almost exclusively in girls. Our very generous audience donated over £700 to the collection. That all goes to the Research Trust, plus an extra 20% because of GiftAid, and with no deductions for expenses. Thanks too to the Church, which was exceptionally helpful and supportive. We heard afterwards that the Research Trust had received an extraordinarily generous donation from an anonymous member of the audience, who specifically mentioned our event as the trigger for their gift. Our heartfelt thanks to you, whoever you are. |
| 2019/06/08 | Haddington | St Mary’s Parish Church | singing by invitation in the huge St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington again, as part of the St Mary’s at 4 series, which is now well established. It brought us an ample and appreciative audience. This was the first of our “women composers” concerts, with music from the 17th to the 21st century, from Italy, Scotland, Germany, the USA and Ireland. |
| 2018/12/16 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 45 minutes of Christmas music in St Giles’ Cathedral in the St Giles’ at 6 series. |
| 2018/12/08 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | Once again, the chapel was packed to capacity and our singing got a very warm reception, which we hope we returned in the wine and mince pies that we offered afterwards to our audience. We’d like to say a public thankyou to the staff at the chapel, who always help us to make this a memorable occasion. |
| 2018/10/06 | Haddington | St Mary’s Parish Church | singing by invitation in this splendid and ancient church. |
| 2018/09/04 | Edinburgh | Inchcolm Abbey | 5 days entertaining our French visitors, the choir À travers chants from Cormatin in Burgundy. One of the highlights was a boat trip from South Queensferry to the island of Inchcolm, where our two choirs sang an informal concert in the Chapter House of the ancient and mostly ruinous abbey. |
| 2018/08/25 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | another appearance in the St Giles’ at 6 series, this time during the Edinburgh Festival. |
| 2018/07/11 | Edinburgh | Mansfield Traquair | the first of 5 corporate hospitality events in July and August. |
| 2018/05/11 | Cranshaws nr Duns | Cranshaws Parish Church | a concert featuring songs in Spanish, Latin and Italian, plus some Scottish favourites. |
| 2017/12/29 | Edinburgh | Assembly Rooms, George Street | singing for a private function. |
| 2017/12/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 45 minutes of music for the Christmas season. |
| 2017/12/09 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | our Christmas concert in Rosslyn Chapel. |
| 2017/09/14 | France | Cormatin | a hugely successful 4-day trip to Cormatin in Burgundy at the invitation of the choir À travers chants. |
| 2017/08/12 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a free concert in the St Giles at 6 series,.with a large and appreciative audience of festival-goers, tourists and locals – not to mention our ever-growing community of ex-singers, followers and friends. |
| 2017/04/27 | Hebden Bridge | Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Heptonstall | a 3-day trip to Yorkshire: a return visit to the lovely Hepton Singers in Hebden Bridge, with a splendid joint concert in the church of St Thomas the Apostle in Heptonstall. We brought a repertoire of mainly Scottish music, including Tom Cunningham’s appealing “Scotland at Night” settings of poems by Alexander McCall Smith. This was an unforgettable weekend of wonderful hospitality and scenic walks. |
| 2017/02/22 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | not a concert, but an open rehearsal aimed at recruiting singers to join us. |
| 2016/12/11 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | an audience of hundreds for our short free concert of music for the Christmas season. |
| 2016/12/10 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | our Christmas concert in Rosslyn Chapel – all tickets sold before we had even begun to advertise! Derrick Morgan wasn’t be able to conduct us, but we were very pleased and lucky to have Sheena Phillips, Rudsambee’s founder, who gallantly offered to take over for the night, in spite of there being only 3 members left of her original choir! |
| 2016/08/20 | Edinburgh | Palm House of the Royal Botanic Garden | Free concerts at 2 and 4pm in the Palm House of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. We were singing by invitation for the Edinburgh International Festival’s community engagement initiative. This was a lovely event, smoothly and professionally organised. We sang a programme of Tavener, Rutter, Mealor and Lauridsen selected by the organisers, and the wonderful mezzo-soprano Emilie Renard, accompanied by Andrew Brown, sang Handel, Wagner, Vaughan Williams and Mahler. Just inside the entrance to a major tourist attraction, we expected a bustling crowd of passers-by who would pay no attention to the music, but in the event we had a gripped and attentive audience for both performances. |
| 2016/08/13 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a 45 minute concert, admission free, in the weekly St Giles at 6 series. |
| 2016/06/17 | London | St Mary Brookfield, Highgate | a joint concert with the wonderful group Voxcetera, who visited Edinburgh and sang with us in 2014. |
| 2016/04/29 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church | Saturday 30th April in St Mark’s Unitarian Church, Castle Terrace: a charity concert with the Hepton Singers from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, whose brilliant singing – plus perhaps free admission and tea and home baking in the interval – inspired an large and generous audience to donate a total of £958.50 for two organisations, one national and one international, both with strong Edinburgh connections: Contact the Elderly and Mercy Corps. Rudsambee sang after the interval – music from Hungary, Ireland, Estonia, America, Scotland, Armenia and Russia. |
| 2015/12/13 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a shorter Christmas concert in St Giles’ Cathedral, with an enthusiastic audience of hundreds. |
| 2015/12/12 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | Christmas concert in Rosslyn Chapel, which looks better (and feels warmer) |
| 2015/10/23 | Edinburgh | singing for another wedding! | |
| 2015/06/18 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church | “Spoken and Sung” — a joint presentation with the Scottish Poetry Library, to raise funds for their Space for Sound project. We were joined by the poets Liz Lochhead, Ron Butlin and Christine De Luca. This concert was selected by The Skinny as one of their ten must-go-to events for the weekend. |
| 2015/05/22 | Edinburgh | singing for a wedding.. | |
| 2014/12/14 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | St Giles at 6 once again attracted an audience of hundreds, and many old friends, to hear us sing a Christmas selection in the magnificent acoustic and ambience of this splendid old church. |
| 2014/12/06 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | our now traditional Christmas concert, completely sold out well in advance – in fact there was a lively trade in returns. There was plenty of new repertoire, including three traditional Hungarian carols, two Christmas motets by Poulenc, one Norwegian carol – no partridges in pear trees, but the rather disreputable Uncle John put in an appearance. Our audience liked a beautiful new piece, Northern Lights, by the young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, and, in a very different style, a little plygain singing in Welsh. |
| 2014/09/17 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a free concert in The National Portrait Gallery, Queen Street. |
| 2014/08/09 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a 45 minute free concert in St Giles Cathedral. |
| 2014/05/23 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church | a joint concert with visiting London-based choir Voxcetera. Our own programme took us through Latin, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Irish, Welsh, Polish, Arabic and English, and Voxcetera added French to the mix. It was a joy to sing with them, and our audience was very appreciative. |
| 2014/05/17 | Mayo | Mayo International Choral Festival | singing at mass at Kylemore Abbey |
| 2014/05/16 | Mayo | Mayo International Choral Festival |
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| 2014/05/15 | Mayo | Mayo International Choral Festival | a slot in a concert in Swinford with local choirs and performers |
| 2013/12/15 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 45 minutes of Christmas music in St Giles Cathedral for the customary huge and enthusiastic audience … followed by Rudsambee’s customary Christmas party. |
| 2013/12/11 | Edinburgh | carols at a private function to entertain the Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy – who received us very well, and revived us with mince pies and Buck’s Fizz after the performance. | |
| 2013/12/07 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | seasonal music from Hungary, the Ukraine, America, France, Ireland, Wales, Germany, the Basque Country, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain and England. Plus mince pies and wine. Whether it’s the goodies or the glorious venue or the promise of exciting music that attracts an audience we cannot say, but we had a completely full house with all the tickets sold well in advance. |
| 2013/08/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | in the St Giles at 6 concert series. A huge audience; the best of this year’s repertoire; the welcome return of Anne as our pianist; and a party afterwards, to celebrate Rudsambee’s 20th anniversary. Another memorable evening! |
| 2013/06/19 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a free early evening concert. |
| 2013/06/15 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church | a joint concert with the fabulous Wild Myrtles. Our very generous audience, encouraged possibly by the music and possibly by free admission, tea and cakes, donated about £600 in support of Alzheimer Scotland and Freespace Scotland. After a long break since our Christmas concerts, Rudsambee introduced a half-year’s worth of new repertoire including Morten Lauridsen’s cycle Nocturnes, Michael McGlynn’s sacred Incantations and Jaako Mäntyjärvi’s Double Double Toil and Trouble. |
| 2012/12/16 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a free concert of 45 minutes of Christmas music for an audience of hundreds in St Giles Cathedral. Ciara, with her back to the audience, could not see how much they were enjoying it until the very end. |
| 2012/12/08 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | a concert of Christmas music for charity, which raised £270 for The MS Society and New Life Nyambene. A full and enthusiastic audience, a fine acoustic, lovely music, mince pies and mulled, er, fruit juice in the interval – this is why Rosslyn is a fixture in our Christmas calendar year after year. |
| 2012/12/05 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | we opened our Christmas season at Priestfield Church with Ciara’s first concert as our director. First, and very successful. |
| 2012/08/24 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | our final concert under Ollie Singleton’s direction, and something special to remember. A huge and enthusiastic lunchtime audience enjoyed a programme ranging from Tallis to Górecki, with the première of Luci Holland’s lovely setting of Carl Sandburg’s Evening Waterfall, some of our favourite pieces by Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen, Arno’s astonishing solo in Fog elna khel matched by Max in Zikr, and some very lively Polish in the sopranos’ and altos’ Mateusz. Helen, AnnaLauren and Jenny joined us to sing, Anne returned again as our pianist. Thanks also to Hilary, Emma and Liz for exotic drumming and beautiful violin and cello parts in Evening Waterfall and Five Hebrew love songs. |
| 2012/05/25 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Universtity’s Reid Hall | not a concert, but a recording session for our new CD Serendipity. We were joined by Sarah Whiteside, with Tamsin on harp and Anne on piano and harpsichord. Ali Murray did the recording. |
| 2012/02/16 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a programme including John Tavener, Rheinberger, Tormis, the pseudo-raga Desh, the Arabic Fog elna khel and more. Two entrées de ballet from Lully’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme featured Tamsin on harp, Sebastian on cello and Nikos on guitar, to great effect. We had not sung in the Gallery since April 2009, when we gave their last concert before a lengthy closure for renovation. We then moved on to Vittoria’s for a farewell dinner for Jenny – leaving us after 18 years to pick up her cornet again – and Anne – without whom, after fourteen years of reliance on her organisational skills and absolute pitch, we will be as lost sheep bleating in the wilderness. |
| 2011/12/11 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a 45-minute concert of Christmas and other music. St Giles attracted its usual audience of hundreds who rewarded our singing with generous enthusiasm (followed up with some very complimentary e-mails). |
| 2011/12/10 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | after a gap of several years forced by renovation work and extreme weather, we were delighted to sing again in Rosslyn Chapel with a programme of Christmas music. We feared that people would have lost the habit of following us to this not-very-accessible venue with its centuries-old reputation for fierce chill; but in the event our audience filled the chapel, and sat in unaccustomed comfort provided by the new heating. |
| 2011/11/12 | Edinburgh | Scottish Poetry Library | An ample audience, a generous acoustic and an intimate atmosphere: this felt more like singing among poetry than singing in a library. We packed a lot into about an hour of singing – partly a public concert and partly the library’s farewell to one of their own. |
| 2011/08/13 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | As usual with the “St Giles at 6” series of free concerts and Edinburgh full of festival-goers and tourists, we got an audience of hundreds, and a very responsive audience too. They seemed to like everything from Morton Lauridsen’s calm and beautiful Contre qui rose to Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo dreams of his flying machine. |
| 2011/06/24 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Universtity’s Reid Hall | We offered free admission and took a retiring collection in support of St Columba’s Hospice and of Drake Music Scotland – an organisation, based in Edinburgh, which creates opportunities across Scotland for over 6000 children and adults with disabilities to compose, learn and perform music independently. Our very generous audience donated over £435, which, with gift-aid, produced a total of £525. |
| 2011/05/14 | London | London Sangerstevne | A longer set on the Sunday at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead, with the admirable Mozaik Voices from Belgium singing the other half of the concert. |
| 2011/05/13 | London | London Sangerstevne | an international non-competitive musical festival, and a lot of fun. Only a few of us could not be there. With a little redistribution of parts and solos, we entertained an audience of (mostly) other singers with a couple of wide-ranging performances that got a very appreciative reception. We sang a 12-minute set at the main event on the Saturday at St Matthew’s Church in Ealing, and a longer set on the Sunday at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead, with the admirable Mozaik Voices from Belgium singing the other half of the concert. |
| 2011/04/13 | Edinburgh | National Gallery, Scotland | (the National Portrait Gallery being still closed for renovation). We began with our first public performance of Ethan Sperry’s raga-style Desh, which moved one Indian listener to come forward to congratulate Ollie, and tell the whole audience how good it was, and make them applaud again! Another new (for us) number was the Syrian/Iraqi Fog elna khel. The rest of our programme meandered through French, Icelandic, English, Estonian, Armenian, Latin and Polish. |
| 2010/12/12 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | this turned out to be our only Christmas concert of the season, since our Rosslyn Chapel and Cranshaws concert bookings were defeated by the snow and ice that arrived in late November and afflicted Scotland’s roads for weeks. Happily, we managed to concentrate three concerts’ worth of enthusiasm and (if our huge audience can be believed) quality into fifty-five minutes, and we got a wonderful response. For our five new members, this was the first experience of the Rudsambee/Christmas/St Giles effect. For Helen, who had come back from London to sing with us just one more time, it was a maintenance dose. |
| 2010/10/05 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | we held an open rehearsal evening in Priestfield Church, so that singers could experience how we operate and find out whether they would enjoy singing with us. A gratifying number of people showed up and (so far as we could tell) enjoyed the evening. They certainly sang well. |
| 2010/09/24 | Wigtown | Wigtown Book Festival | a concert in Wigtown Parish Church, including Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst and his Five Hebrew Love Songs. These needed the support of several excellent local volunteer instrumentalists who made them into outstanding performances in spite of having had only an hour or so to rehearse with us beforehand. I’d particularly like to thank Susan Smyth whose solo violin created the perfect sound picture for the Love Songs. |
| 2010/08/28 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a 45-minute free concert in the St Giles at 6 series. Thanks to the generosity of a dozen or so instrumentalists, we assembled the forces for our second performance of Eric Whitacre’s stunning Cloudburst, and his Five Hebrew Love Songs, and the spine-tingling opening number from Abbie Betinis’ From behind the caravan: songs of Hâfez. A huge audience repaid us with concentrated attention and a standing ovation. From our point of view, this was one of the most exhilarating and rewarding performances that we can remember. It was Helen’s last concert before her move to London; and Angus missed it by one day, having departed for Australia on the Saturday. On the bright side, Claire reappeared for the day and sang with us. |
| 2010/08/14 | Edinburgh | Ross Bandstand, Princes St Gardens | as part of the “Scotland has talent” series of concerts. We sang a seventy-minute set at 10am on a Sunday morning at a venue that was almost hidden by (yet another) spiegeltent. Luckily the weather was pleasant, and an audience was lured in by the amplified sound and the free admission. We collected about £100 for WaterAid and St Columba’s Hospice. |
| 2010/06/25 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Universtity’s Reid Hall | where we performed Cloudburst in 2009. There were no handbells and thundersheets this time but we did sing another couple of pieces by Eric Whitacre. We kept up our tradition of singing in as many different languages as we can get our tongues around – Estonian, Armenian, French (old and new), Italian, Breton and even some English. We had the full attention of a small but appreciative audience (they outnumbered the singers, but not by much). |
| 2010/05/14 | Biggar | singing for a wedding in Biggar. | |
| 2010/04/14 | Edinburgh | National Gallery, Scotland | a 30-minute free concert. That’s the National Gallery on The Mound, not our familiar venue in the National Portrait Gallery (which is closed for renovation). |
| 2009/12/19 | Cranshaws nr Duns | we had to cancel, for the first time that any of us could remember. We were booked to sing in the very hospitable and very remote village of Cranshaws, deep in the Lammermuir hills. Since 2006, this or Longformacus has been our last pre-Christmas concert, and it’s always something to look forward to. But snow and ice had begun a couple of days before, road conditions were treacherous, and worse was forecast. We were in our cars ready to set off when a flurry of mobile phone calls told us that it wouldn’t be safe to travel; so we rapidly organised an impromptu party in Edinburgh instead, to say farewell to our Diva, Claire, who will be very much missed. | |
| 2009/12/12 | Edinburgh | Augustine United Church | full-length Christmas concert |
| 2009/12/09 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | full-length Christmas concert |
| 2009/12/06 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | our first Christmas concert of the season, about 45 minutes, in the St Giles at 6 series. |
| 2009/10/09 | Falkland | Falkland Parish Church | The fame of Falkland Palace perhaps obscures the fact that Falkland itself is a beautiful historic village and well worth a visit. This was our opportunity for a lovely day out, with some very enjoyable singing for an appreciative audience, followed by lavish refreshments at the church and then more hospitality at Elaine’s. |
| 2009/08/15 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a free 45-minute concert in the St Giles at 6 series. At the peak of the Festival, there’s always a large audience at this venue, and they were in a very receptive mood for a couple of pieces new to our repertoire: Sfogava con le stelle (Monteverdi) and Tormis’ Timid girl on the swing. Following established custom, the evening then meandered on via Jinglin’ Geordie’s and Vittoria’s. |
| 2009/08/07 | Wishaw | singing for the wedding of Douglas’ daughter Rosalind. | |
| 2009/06/26 | York | a joint concert with Soon Amore, who made us very welcome again after five years since our last meeting. Their wonderful hospitality, and their ability to attract a packed and enthusiastic audience, made this another day to remember. | |
| 2009/06/05 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Universtity’s Reid Hall | A near-capacity audience donated a total of £977.60 (which is boosted by a tax-aid refund) towards the work of Arts for Well-Being: Children of the Balkans Society. Congratulations and sincere thanks to everyone who took part – our wonderful audience; Holy Trinity Handbells from Haddington; all the other volunteer instrumentalists; and Ollie for inspiring and leading us through an astonishing repertoire that culminated with Eric Whitacre’s amazing Cloudburst. |
| 2009/04/01 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a forty-five minute free concert at 6pm in the National Portrait Gallery – the gallery’s last concert before a two-year closure for major refurbishment. All seats taken, and more audience listening from the gallery. They received a very eclectic programme with great enthusiasm – Veljo Tormis, Arvo Pärt, Debussy, Hide and Seek, Abbie Betinis’ extraordinary Envoi, a Chinese setting (Green Fir Forest), a Swingle Singers’ arrangement of The Star of the County Down, and more. |
| 2008/12/20 | Longformacus | Longformacus Church | a one-hour concert in Longformacus Church in the Borders, followed by excellent mulled wine and mince pies in the village hall. |
| 2008/12/14 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | three-quarters of an hour in St. Giles Cathedral. For atmosphere, acoustics, and a large audience, this event never disappoints, and once again it evoked one of our best performances. |
| 2008/12/10 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Parish Church | in support of their restoration fund. Warmly welcomed and enthusiastically received, as always. |
| 2008/12/06 | Edinburgh | Canongate Kirk | in previous years, we have sung in Rosslyn Chapel, but that was closed for the construction of a new visitors’ centre, so the Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile made an attractive (and warmer) alternative – attractive enough to bring in an audience of about the same numbers as would have crammed Rosslyn. We were joined by a brass group from the Music Department of the University of Edinburgh, and we had Anne’s clarsach accompaniment to our Gaelic carol Taladh Chriosda. What’s more, this was the launch of our new CD what are they doing? |
| 2008/11/13 | Edinburgh | Merchants’ Hall | a private engagement, singing at a reception for a conference of tissue bank specialists |
| 2008/10/07 | Edinburgh | National Library of Scotland | a concert of Scottish music from the library’s collection, complementing the exhibition “Imprentit: 500 Years of the Scottish printed word”. This included our first public performance of Robert Carver’s motet O bone Jesu, which dates from around 1513. Carver wrote this for for nineteen separate voices, but we use a six-part transcription by Mick Swithinbank – all the original notes, but each singer has to sing more of them! That makes for eleven very energetic minutes striving to create the same kind of varied and complex choral textures that you will find in Tallis’ Spem in alium. I don’t write reviews here, but I can claim that (a) the audience liked it, and (b) we finished on pretty much the same pitch where we began. |
| 2008/08/16 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | St. Giles – a free concert in the “St Giles at 6” series, packed with an audience of tourists and festival-goers escaping for an hour from the street performers and flyer-distributors who infest the Royal Mile at this time of year. |
| 2008/06/20 | Sušice (Czech Republic) | Smetana Hall | a joint concert with Svatobor choir, received with a standing ovation by a generous and enthusiastic audience. Svatobor were our wonderfully welcoming hosts for a memorable three-night stay which included a reception in the Town Hall, a tour of the Šumava forest, two (!) lavish parties, fine Czech beer and diverse less identifiable drinks, and of course much music and singing … |
| 2008/04/04 | Edinburgh | Playfair Library | a private booking for the University of Edinburgh in the magnificent Playfair Library. |
| 2008/04/02 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a short free concert at 6pm in the National Portrait Gallery. This was, within two days, the tenth anniversary of our first performance in what has become a regular venue, and our repertoire and style has, of course, changed enormously over those years. Even so, we managed to include Gaelic, Estonian, Armenian, French, Latin, and contemporary American pieces. The audience crowded in and much extra seating had to be found. |
| 2007/12/16 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 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. |
| 2007/12/15 | Borders | 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. |
| 2007/12/12 | Edinburgh | 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. |
| 2007/12/08 | Roslin | 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. |
| 2007/12/06 | Glasgow | 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. |
| 2007/11/30 | Edinburgh | Mansfield Traquair | singing as background music at a private function in 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. |
| 2007/11/06 | Edinburgh | 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. |
| 2007/09/21 | Whithorn | Swallow Theatre | 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. |
| 2007/08/31 | Edinburgh | The Counting House | 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! |
| 2007/08/18 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | 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. |
| 2007/07/05 | Edinburgh | Canongate Kirk | 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! |
| 2007/06/20 | Edinburgh | French Institute | 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. |
| 2007/05/26 | Edinburgh | Morningside Park | 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. |
| 2007/04/18 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | 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. |
| 2007/03/04 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarrian Church | a group of us sang for a Songs of Celebration event. |
| 2006/12/16 | Borders | Cranshaws Parish Church | a free concert in a lovely church in the very attractive and sociable village of Cranshaws, deep in the Borders, with mince pies and mulled wine in the village hall afterwards. After seven years, this was our last concert with Frances. |
| 2006/12/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a free concert in the “St Giles at Six” series, packed with an audience of at least three hundred. Wonderful atmosphere, rich acoustic: a delight to sing another Christmas concert here, but a twinge of sadness that Frances won’t be leading us next year. Sadness rapidly dispelled by an evening at Vittoria’s. |
| 2006/12/10 | Edinburgh | National Museum of Scotland | a good audience gathered to hear us and appeared to enjoy the early afternoon performance in spite of the unhelpful acoustic, background noise and distractions. |
| 2006/12/09 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | sold out, with people queueing for returns. A very good evening indeed. |
| 2006/12/06 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | a good audience, appreciative as always, and an enjoyable opener for our Christmas series |
| 2006/10/24 | Biggar | Biggar Festival | scheduled to conflict with two competing attractions – but plenty of people paid to hear us, and liked us well enough to buy an unprecedented number of CDs. |
| 2006/10/06 | Cockermouth | Kirkgate Centre Cockermouth | a weekend trip to the Lake District to sing in the Kirkgate Centre, Cockermouth, with Piping Hot Recorders – featuring the world premiere of The Snow Maiden |
| 2006/09/22 | Edinburgh | St Martin’s Church, Dalry | in support of the Bethany Christian Trust: scarcely a ticket sold by the Saturday morning, which drove some of us out to leaflet the farmers’ market, but on the evening an ample and generous audience appeared. |
| 2006/07/07 | Edinburgh | singing for a wedding | |
| 2006/05/27 | Boat of Garten | St Columba’s Church | the last concert of our tour |
| 2006/05/25 | Arisaig | Astley Hall | concert in the evening – in the afternoon, a workshop for the children of Arisaig Primary School |
| 2006/05/24 | Lochcarron | Lochcarron Village Hall | a concert in the village hall by the side of the loch |
| 2006/05/23 | Isle of Skye | Aros Centre, Portree | the first concert on a very busy and active short tour |
| 2006/04/21 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | songs in English, Latin, French, Gaelic, Croatian, Polish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Armenian diddling, and something Caribbean. Very well received by a discerning audience – discerning, but not as large as normal at Rosslyn. That was just as well, since the reserve seating had disappeared, and if any more people had come along then they would have had to stand. So I shamelessly record yet another FULL HOUSE! |
| 2006/04/07 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarrian Church | singing for Rachael and Jake’s very lovely wedding in St Mark’s Unitarian Church, and at the ceilidh that evening in the Mansion House at Edinburgh Zoo. |
| 2005/12/11 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | We were happy to be back once again singing our Christmas music in the “St Giles at 6” series, with, as usual, a very large and appreciative audience. It could be the free admission that attracts them, but they like us well enough to buy lots of CDs. This was our last public performance for the year, although we did congregate a week later for our Christmas party with some totally different music: Jenny’s frighteningly accurate rendition of her Granny’s version of “Stay young and beautiful”, for instance, and Sam’s spectacular Nigerian drumming. |
| 2005/12/10 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | all tickets sold, and a lovely occasion as always. Bitterly cold, but that too is normal for Rosslyn. Two Norwegians in the audience complimented us on our Swedish, but evaded the question when we asked how they had liked our new Norwegian piece. |
| 2005/12/07 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | our annual concert in Priestfield Church – proceeds to the rebuilding fund that maintains this remarkable building, which celebrated the 125th anniversary of its opening on December 10th. Introducing some new Christmas repertoire, including splendid pieces from Norway, Nigeria and New Zealand, and a Plygain carol from Wales. |
| 2005/11/30 | Edinburgh | BBC Radio Scotland | BBC Radio Scotland’s Radio Café programme used “Mary’s Song”, from the CD Citrus and Honey, when they were discussing the poetry of Marion Angus in their poll to find “Scotland’s favourite poem”. |
| 2005/11/11 | Edinburgh | Morningside | we enjoyed an evening workshop with Cathy-Ann MacPhee who taught us the words and tunes of a good number of traditional Gaelic songs. Do not suppose that the word “taught” implies that we learned them all! We did our best, and we have a good recording of the whole session, so we can go over them again as often as we need. |
| 2005/10/20 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | singing at the ceilidh for AnnaLauren’s wedding. This featured AnnaLauren’s rendering of “Whistle daughter whistle”. When she finally did whistle, ear-splittingly, her husband of seven hours appeared from nowhere, picked her up, and bore her away, rendering Rudsambee and the audience incapable with laughter. |
| 2005/09/30 | Arran | Whiting Bay | on the island of Arran, in Whiting Bay Village Hall: a programme in fourteen languages (one more than our previous record) taking us from Brazil to Macedonia, from Finland to South Africa. For several of us, it was our first visit to Arran, and we loved it. We enjoyed singing to a very receptive and warm audience, albeit not a large one. It would have been larger by one if the new-found friend who paid us for a ticket in the bar of the Lagg Inn on Friday night had remembered about it on Saturday. |
| 2005/05/20 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | a cappella songs from around the world in Rosslyn Chapel. This was a shared concert with Soundsphere four-piece vocal group from York. An excellent evening, as always at Rosslyn. It was a novel pleasure to sing to an enthusiastic near-capacity audience for the first half of the concert, and then to relax in the audience ourselves while Soundsphere delighted us with their brilliant singing and presentation in the second half. The evening was distinguished by the first appearance in public performance of Frances’ stookie (that’s a plaster cast). |
| 2005/05/04 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a short 6pm concert, admission free, led by Anne, since Frances had had too little time to perfect the technique of conducting while balancing on one leg and manipulating a pair of crutches (see next entry). There followed an hour or so in the pub with Anna, who was back for the briefest of visits after leaving us last year to emigrate to New Zealand. After that, there was no option but an evening at Vittoria’s, which kept your correspondent away from the polling station until it was too late to cast a vote in the general election. |
| 2005/04/29 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | Kay and Cailein’s wedding. Frank conducted the service; we sang at it; Anne played the organ. In the evening, we sang more at the ceilidh, Robin danced with every woman in the choir (except those who claimed that their knees would not take the strain) and Frances got a bit wild in the Dashing White Sergeant and ruptured her achilles tendon. Frances wants you to know that this was caused by some oaf in the next set kicking her on the back of the calf, and it is a recognised common injury in Scottish A&E departments. It has a recognised treatment, too: three months in plaster, and no driving. |
| 2004/12/12 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | packed out with a splendidly receptive audience, all tickets sold, big CD sales. We’re all agreed that this was the best of this year’s Christmas concerts. The chapel was, as always, freezing cold, so that we could see our breath condensing as we sang, but a glass of wine at the interval fortifies audience and singers, and the place is so atmospheric and beautiful, and so good acoustically, that it is always a joy to sing there. |
| 2004/12/11 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | a private concert in a retirement home for Scottish ex-servicemen. |
| 2004/12/08 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | our seventh Christmas concert for our friends there, with all proceeds going to their rebuilding fund. |
| 2004/11/28 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | midwinter and Christmas songs in St Giles Cathedral at 6pm. A lovely place to sing, and, as always, an appreciative audience. This was also the first opportunity to buy our new CD, Out of the Christmas flame, which was delivered to us promptly by the ever-reliable RPM in spite of our impossibly short deadlines and the usual misfortunes that beset CD production. |
| 2004/09/24 | Whithorn | Swallow Theatre | The Swallow Theatre is a restored and converted barn set among the rolling Galloway hills. The first time we sang there was back in 1998. Once again, we enjoyed singing to a full house, and we were overwhelmed with hospitality after the show too. By a happy coincidence, two friends from Arendal in Norway (see below – 2002) had just arrived on a visit to Scotland, and two no-shows left space for them in the auditorium. |
| 2004/09/01 | Edinburgh | National Gallery of Scotland | a short early evening concert, admission free. |
| 2004/07/16 | York | York Cemetery Chapel | arriving in York under a gloomy sky and drenching rain, and contemplating a concert in a cemetery, we expected only a small and morose audience. But our host choir, Soon Amore, gave us a warm welcome, the sun broke through, the cemetery turned out to be packed with interesting curiosities and attractive corners, and the Cemetery Chapel was an architectural gem with glorious acoustics. The audience streamed in with their pre-concert picnics and wine, making the most of the change in the weather, and then packed every seat in the chapel. Whatever Rudsambee and Soon Amore sang, separately or together, they received with huge enthusiasm, and eventually they demanded more encores than we had ready to sing for them. Better yet, they bought lots of CDs. Altogether it was a very good day indeed. Our thanks go to Soon Amore for suggesting it, organising it, publicising it, selling the tickets, accommodating us and feeding us, and even finding a pub that would tolerate our less polished singing after the show! And, in case you’re wondering, they sing brilliantly too. |
| 2004/06/20 | Edinburgh | Danish Cultural Institute | Music Day at the Danish Cultural Institute in Edinburgh: singing a set in a musical mid-summer celebration featuring several groups, amateur and professional, and a variety of styles. |
| 2004/05/30 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | Drew Reith 9th August 1947 – 31st May 2004. Rudsambee mourns the loss of a fine tenor, a gifted musician, and, most of all, a friend and fellow spirit. Drew joined us early in 2004, and rapidly established himself as a valued member of our group. He is sadly missed when we meet and when we perform. We were honoured to be asked to sing at his memorial service. |
| 2004/05/21 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | Cantemus chamber choir from Stavanger in Norway hosted part of our Norwegian tour in 2002, and we were delighted to join them in a concert in historic Rosslyn Chapel: an outstanding occasion in every way. It was a beautiful warm evening, Cantemus sang gloriously, every ticket was sold, and CDs were in great demand too. Cantemus had already given a splendid lunchtime concert in St Giles that day, and they would not stop singing until long after midnight. We know, because we kept them company in that famous Edinburgh centre of Gaelic and Hebridean culture, the West End Hotel, where the music is live and the whisky comes in lavish measures. Thankyou, Cantemus, for an unforgettable day, and we hope you had a quiet journey home on Sunday! |
| 2004/05/20 | Edinburgh | Liberton Kirk Halls | singing a set to conclude an awards ceremony for Adult Learners in Liberton Kirk Halls. |
| 2004/05/07 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | a joint workshop with Soon Amore singers from York |
| 2004/04/14 | Edinburgh | National Portrait Gallery | a free early-evening concert in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, one of our favourite places to sing. This was Anna’s last concert with us; we all wish her (and Ben and Maia and Holly) happiness and success in New Zealand, but we hope they’ll come back to see us. |
| 2004/01/01 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh and beyond | 2004 began with a three-month gap in public performances while Rudsambee recorded a new CD of Christmas music, and Alison walked through Tanzania to complete her very successful Oxfam fund-raising project. |
| 2003/12/14 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a Christmas concert in the “St. Giles at 6” series. That was our second visit to this beautiful church in 2003, and, once again, we enjoyed singing to a large and enthusiastic audience. |
| 2003/12/13 | Edinburgh | Old St Paul’s Church | Alison was planning a trek through the Rift Valley in Tanzania to raise money for Oxfam. All the proceeds from this concert – more than £300 – went to her sponsorship fund. |
| 2003/12/10 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | This has become a regular concert for us and we’re very pleased that they enjoy having us back each year. |
| 2003/10/31 | Ireland | Sligo International Choral Festival | We sang in four classes in two days, had a slot on local radio, a session in the Harp Tavern (part of the festival programme) and several sessions in McLynns. We were honoured to be asked to sing at the opening at Drumcliffe Church (where W B Yeats is buried) of a major new sculpture inspired by his poem “He wishes for the cloths of Heaven” following which, the Usual Suspects proceeded on a tour to Achill Island and Galway. |
| 2003/09/27 | Dunfermline | St Margaret’s Church | a concert in aid of the charity Chernobyl Children Life Line |
| 2003/09/10 | Edinburgh | National Gallery of Scotland | a half-hour of songs related to pictures in the collection. |
| 2003/08/05 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | a summer concert |
| 2003/08/02 | Culross | Culross Fayre | a trip tp Fife |
| 2003/06/14 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | A pleasingly large audience. In case you think that was just because the concert was free, I can tell you that they liked us well enough to buy an unprecedented number of CDs after the show. |
| 2003/04/26 | Edinburgh | Canongate Kirk | with Tjølling Sangforening from Norway, directed by Øivind Mikalsen, and with the brilliant young Norwegian organist Johan Wallace |
| 2003/04/12 | Culross | Culross Abbey | a Palm Sunday concert |
| 2003/03/31 | Sahara | Sari Kontkanen went to the Sahara for a 100Km sponsored walk for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. She had to raise a lot of money for this – see our Christmas Concert in Rosslyn Chapel. More came from the guests at the Burns Dinner where we sang. Our thanks to everyone who supported Sari! | |
| 2003/03/29 | Edinburgh | Hopetoun House | singing for Christine and John’s wedding in Aberdour’s ancient church, and afterwards at the reception in Hopetoun House – very grand indeed! We returned in the evening to enjoy the ceilidh in the ballroom (hung with centuries-old tapestries), but we felt no need to sing – the brilliant Portobello Ceilidh Band provided all the entertainment. |
| 2003/03/06 | Edinburgh | The Hub | singing at a Royal Gala Dinner for BESO (British Executive Service Overseas) in the presence of BESO Patron, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, raising funds (£50 per guest, and there were plenty) for the work of BESO’s Scottish office. |
| 2003/01/17 | Edinburgh | Robert Burns songs (and more) for a corporate Burns Dinner | |
| 2002/12/15 | Kirknewton | St Mary’s Church Dalmahoy | singing for a lovely wedding in this beautiful little church just outside Edinburgh. |
| 2002/12/14 | Berwick-upon-Tweed | Paxton House | a magnificent country house on the border midway between Edinburgh and Newcastle, which is also a partner gallery of the National Galleries of Scotland and home to seventy paintings from their collection |
| 2002/12/11 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | The church is kind enough to let us use the hall for rehearsals whenever we need to and, in return, we always give a Christmas Concert. They use the funds raised to continue with the major external refurbishment of the church. |
| 2002/12/07 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | Every seat sold for our return to this beautiful venue after more than four years! Rosslyn Chapel is over 550 years old, famous for its extraordinary architecture and astonishing history, and a site of legend and mystery. All the proceeds of the concert – £630 – went to one of our singers, Sari Kontkanen, in support of her sponsored 100 km walk through the Sahara Desert in April 2003, to raise funds for the Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. |
| 2002/12/01 | Edinburgh | Royal Museum of Scotland | |
| 2002/11/02 | Edinburgh | St Cecilia’s Hall | our first appearance in the Scottish International Storytelling Festival |
| 2002/09/20 | Edinburgh | Netherbow Theatre | A polyglot evening featuring Danish, Welsh, Gaelic, Croatian, French, Bengali, Polish, Icelandic, Georgian, Scots and English, plus songs from Norway, Shetland, South Africa, the Isle of Man and Iglulik. |
| 2002/08/30 | Edinburgh | Merchiston | Singing a set in Scottish Love In Action’s “music and fun in the park” fund-raiser. This is an Edinburgh-based charity which has built a home and school for 190 children, most of them orphans, in Tuni in South East India. They need £18,000 a year to keep the children fed, clothed and educated. On this one day, they raised £7,400. |
| 2002/08/17 | Dunbar | Dunbar Parish Church | an afternoon concert in Dunbar Parish Church. We recorded our CD “bottled at source” here, and were delighted to be asked to sing in this beautiful church again. |
| 2002/06/06 | Norway | Arendal | Friday 7th to Sunday 9th in Arendal, for the Arendal Choral Festival – visiting our good friends the Liga av Sang og Munterhed, and singing in the public open-air concert in Kanalplassen on the Saturday and the concert in the Hove amphitheatre on the Sunday. |
| 2002/06/03 | Norway | Stavanger | Tuesday 4th to Thursday 6th in Stavanger, with a concert on the 6th jointly with Kammerkoret Cantemus in the Rogaland Kunstmuseum. |
| 2002/05/31 | Edinburgh | Morningside Baptist Church, Holy Corner | helping the church to raise funds for its refurbishment |
| 2002/05/01 | Edinburgh | Ikea, Straiton | singing in support of a collection by ‘Save the Children’ |
| 2002/03/16 | Northern Ireland | Coleraine | singing in the mixed voice choirs class in the Coleraine Festival in Northern Ireland. After our disappointment in 2001 – see below – we were determined to get to Coleraine this year, and the three-day trip more than fulfilled our expectations. We had a great time in every way – and we won third prize. Then we recovered from the celebrations with a visit to the Giant’s Causeway. |
| 2001/12/16 | Edinburgh | Methodist Central Hall | after St Giles we sang a set in Gorgie Salvation Army Band’s Christmas Concert |
| 2001/12/16 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a concert in the ‘St Giles’ at 6′ series |
| 2001/12/11 | Aberdour | St Columba’s Episcopal Church | a Christmas concert |
| 2001/12/08 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | our annual Christmas concert |
| 2001/12/04 | Edinburgh | Royal Museum of Scotland | first outing of the Christmas season |
| 2001/10/26 | Edinburgh | St Mary’s RC Cathedral | we sang (in Polish) at the wedding of one of our number |
| 2001/10/05 | Whithorn | Swallow Theatre | taking part in a commemorative event to celebrate the life of Jill Sumner, who founded the theatre with her husband David. Included the first performance of a new piece by Sheena Phillips, Music for Jill, a setting of words that Jill had chosen herself: Norman MacCaig’s poem “If your hand came”. |
| 2001/09/24 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Castle | in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle – performing by invitation at a Royal Gala Dinner in the presence of the Princess Royal |
| 2001/08/24 | Edinburgh | National Portait Gallery | another afternoon concert – 7 voices this time |
| 2001/06/29 | Edinburgh | Netherbow Theatre | Sold out! |
| 2001/06/22 | Edinburgh | Malleny House | a small group of the choir sang in Malleny House for a private audience – the Friends of Malleny House. |
| 2001/06/08 | Biggar | ||
| 2001/04/21 | Edinburgh | National Portait Gallery | an afternoon concert |
| 2001/03/24 | Glasgow | We managed to make a late entry into the Glasgow Music Competition, and sang in the mixed voice (non-competitive) class on Saturday 24th March. A very enjoyable afternoon and evening with a lot of other fine singers, and some compensation for missing our planned appearance in the Coleraine Festival in Northern Ireland, in the mixed voice competition on March 24th. The festival had to be cancelled at a couple of weeks’ notice because of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. | |
| 2000/12/17 | Edinburgh | Methodist Central Hall | Two spots in Gorgie Salvation Army Band’s annual City Carol Service. |
| 2000/12/13 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | our annual Christmas concert |
| 2000/12/10 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a concert in the ‘St Giles’ at 6′ series |
| 2000/12/08 | Balerno | Balerno Parish Church | in support of “Riding for the Disabled”. |
| 2000/12/05 | Edinburgh | Royal Museum of Scotland | an early evening concert |
| 2000/09/15 | Whithorn | 2 concerts this weekend for the feast of St Ninian, including the World Premiere of Sheena Phillips’ “Memorial”. Sheena flew in from America to conduct this piece. | |
| 2000/08/26 | Peebles | a workshop and a concert as part of the Peebles Festival | |
| 2000/05/27 | Edinburgh | Royal Botanical Gardens | one set in an afternoon of music at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. Part of the BBC Music Live festival. |
| 2000/05/26 | Edinburgh | National Portait Gallery | Part of the BBC Music Live festival. |
| 2000/04/28 | Dunbar | Dunbar Parish Church | We liked the acoustic so much that we returned to Dunbar in October to record our next CD. |
| 1999/12/12 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a selection of Christmas music in the ‘St Giles’ at 6′ series.This was our last concert with Sheena as Director before she and her family emigrated to America. |
| 1999/12/11 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | |
| 1999/12/07 | Edinburgh | Royal Museum of Scotland | |
| 1999/12/05 | Carnoustie, Angus | the first of our 1999 Christmas concerts | |
| 1999/09/21 | Edinburgh | Canongate Kirk | Songs of Sorrow and Love, from Scotland, Iceland, Croatia, Poland, North America, South Africa and the Caucasus; new settings of ancient Welsh and Arabic poetry. Very well reviewed in the Evening News |
| 1999/09/18 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Castle | singing three sets in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle – part of Historic Scotland’s “extravaganza” to entertain the tourists |
| 1999/08/28 | Peebles | a very well attended workshop in the afternoon, and an evening concert – two events in the annual Peebles Festival. | |
| 1999/07/02 | Scotland | to Saturday 10 July: tour of the North-West of Scotland – Portree (Aros Theatre) and Armadale (Arainn Chaluim Chille) on Skye, plus Lochcarron, Poolewe, Ullapool and Kinlochbervie. | |
| 1999/05/22 | Newton Stewart | All Saints Church, Challoch | an afternoon concert |
| 1999/05/21 | Whithorn | Swallow Theatre | an evening concert |
| 1999/05/07 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | a lunchtime concert at St Giles… |
| 1999/05/07 | Aberdour | St Fillan’s Church | …and an evening concert at St Fillan’s Church, Aberdour, with Københavns Folkekor |
| 1999/05/04 | Haddington | St Mary’s Parish Church | jointly with Københavns Folkekor, visiting from Denmark |
| 1999/03/28 | Edinburgh | National Portait Gallery | an afternoon performance |
| 1999/01/09 | Biggar | Wiston Lodge | participating in their Twelfth Night celebration |
| 1998/12/16 | Peebles | St Peter’s Church | our last Christmas concert of 1998 |
| 1998/12/15 | Edinburgh | The Georgian House, Charlotte Square | a private concert for members of the National Trust for Scotland |
| 1998/12/13 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | offering another varied and original programme of Christmas music to an audience of well over 300. |
| 1998/12/12 | Edinburgh | Priestfield Church | |
| 1998/11/14 | Edinburgh | Out of the Nomad’s Tent | for the opening of their Christmas exhibition |
| 1998/09/04 | Helensburgh | we sang at Julia’s wedding – date uncertain! | |
| 1998/08/29 | Peebles | St Peter’s Church | an evening concert in the Peebles Festival |
| 1998/08/28 | Edinburgh | Meadowbank Stadium | part of the Edinburgh Mela at Meadowbank Stadium: a half-hour set at 4pm. |
| 1998/08/25 | Edinburgh | Festival Theatre | singing a few numbers in BBC Radio Scotland’s live broadcast of Mr Anderson’s Fine Tunes from the Festival Theatre. |
| 1998/08/24 | Edinburgh | St Mark’s Unitarian Church | .. and 26 August in the Edinburgh Festival Finge – two lively concerts featuring festive music from the Middle East, Africa and India and other songs from Scotland and far-flung parts of Europe. |
| 1998/07/03 | Whithorn | Swallow Theatre | We travelled to Whithorn in south-west Scotland to perform at the tiny Swallow Theatre – deep in the most beautiful countryside, converted from a cow byre, powered by solar panels and wind generators, packed with a very appreciative audience. We loved it. The Swallow Theatre brings in all kinds of interesting performances, and if you are ever in those parts you should try to get there. We also stayed on (some of us pitched tents in the field next to the theatre) to sing the next day in the church at Mochrum, and to visit St Ninian’s cave. |
| 1998/06/23 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | back again in the astonishing architecture, ethereal acoustics and wonderful atmosphere of Rosslyn Chapel, with a new programme of religious music and secular pieces from Scotland and France. |
| 1998/06/20 | Edinburgh | Institut Français d’Ecosse | as part of hugely enjoyable Fête de la Musique at the Institut Français d’Ecosse in Edinburgh: an evening performance from our repertoire of French and Scottish songs. Excerpt included in BBC Radio Scotland’s coverage of the event. |
| 1998/06/05 | Perthshire | Battleby | for the Annual General Meeting of the Franco-Scottish Society (at Battleby in Perthshire) – a digestif of French and Scottish songs to round off the luncheon. |
| 1998/05/29 | Edinburgh | presenting a set of songs from around the world at the “Mela in May” – an outdoor multicultural arts festival. The event was closer to “the Mela in the Monsoon” as the Edinburgh weather turned cold and rainy for the weekend – but everybody had a good time anyway. | |
| 1998/05/22 | Edinburgh | St Bernard’s Centre, Stockbridge | presenting five of our pieces in the Edinburgh PERFORM competition at the St Bernard’s Centre (Saxe Coburg Street, Edinburgh), and winning three prizes! |
| 1998/05/21 | Edinburgh | at a private function where Rudsambee and the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union hosted two visiting choirs from Norway, Straumsnes Songlag and Abildsø Bygdekor. | |
| 1998/04/19 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh Folk Club | as one of the introductory acts for the Bushbury Mountain Daredevils, an excellent Birmingham-based group. |
| 1998/04/04 | Edinburgh | National Portait Gallery | a forty-minute programme of songs from Europe about love and death, spring and winter, praise and passion. |
| 1997/12/19 | Edinburgh | BBC’s Queen Street Studios | recording a few items as part of BBC Radio Scotland’s Hogmanay broadcast, at the BBC’s Queen Street Studios, Edinburgh, on the evening of Friday 19 December. |
| 1997/12/14 | Edinburgh | St Giles’ Cathedral | St Giles at Six’, an hour of Christmas music before the evening service. |
| 1997/12/06 | Biggar | Wiston Lodge | our customary fireside carol evening at YMCA Wiston Lodge. |
| 1997/12/05 | Midlothian | Whitburgh House | in support of the Crichton Church Trust. |
| 1997/12/04 | Edinburgh | The Georgian House, Charlotte Square | An evening of carols and other seasonal music, for members of the National Trust for Scotland. |
| 1997/09/19 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | |
| 1997/09/12 | Perth | Methven Castle | From the Perthshire Advertiser: “The variety of works and the quality of sound were splendid. The dedication of the singers was palpable. It was clear that much of their inspiration came from their admirable founder and musical director, Sheena Phillips.” |
| 1997/09/06 | Stirling | Stirling Castle | |
| 1997/08/30 | Peebles | Peebles Festival – workshop and concert | |
| 1997/06/10 | Roslin | Rosslyn Chapel | |
| 1997/05/10 | Glasgow | Burrell Collection |
Past Concerts
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