The Scottish Chamber Choir is based in Edinburgh and rehearses on Monday evenings in the Dean in Edinburgh’s West End.
Although the choir has been based in Edinburgh for more than 50 years, it has performed throughout Scotland to great critical acclaim, and the recent premiere of its commission The Lost Lichts – a commission from Ailie Robertson, setting the words of three female poets from north-east Scotland took place, appropriately, in St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen.
With around 30 dedicated singers, the choir has the size and scope to tackle a range of works and to nurture individual and choral skills.
The Scottish Chamber Choir approaches a wide-ranging repertoire with fresh ideas and an enthusiasm for making new musical connections. The SCC takes pride in singing a broad spectrum of music – ancient to contemporary, sacred and secular, accompanied and a cappella.
Our next concert
Spring concert
A blossoming of songs celebrating all things summery.
The Scottish Chamber Choir comes to Kelso to celebrate the beginning of summer with a host of golden choral pieces. From dawn in Sheena Phillips’ celebratory Aurora rutilat to Eric Whitacre’s caressing Sleep, the programme radiates joy in the unfolding beauty and ease of the long days and soft nights of summer.
Gerald Finzi’s 1939 setting of Seven Poems of Robert Bridges weaves gossamer vocal lines into intricate harmonies catching at the fleeting beauty of a flower, a phrase of music, a lost love. These are exquisite miniatures with a purity of emotion that finds sadness and solace in the passing moment, the “swift unceasing flight” of joy.
Andrew Carvel’s Summer Sun sets the poem from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and was commissioned for the choir’s 50 th anniversary in 2018. The composer’s musical direction for the performers is “calm and shimmering” and this is a sweet and lithe evocation of the golden power of the sun, “to please the child, to paint the rose, the gardener of the world he goes”.
At the heart of this bouquet of beautiful miniatures is Palestrina’s Missa brevis. Amongst his many settings of the mass, this is one of the composer’s shortest and sweetest. Graceful lines and spacious polyphony will fill Kelso Old Parish Church with sumptuous sounds. The contrast could hardly be greater between Palestrina and the exuberantly crazy mood of Finnish composer Jaakko Mantyjarvi’s Pseudo-Yoik. It’s impossible to describe, so come and hear it!
March concert
Northern Lights, our concert on Saturday 8 March at Stockbridge Parish Church, was a delicious smörgåsbord of choral pieces from past and present composers of Baltic and Nordic countries.
In these northern lands the extremes of nature seem to fuel an understanding of the myriad possibilities of the human voice. It was a thrilling exploration of this vast and surprising musical landscape.
Icelandic composers Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson and Anna Thorvaldsdottir start from ancient texts and transport them to a primal yet uniquely contemporary soundworld.
Estonian Urmas Sisask combines old-world polyphony with unexpected rhythmic splashes.
Danish composer Per Nørgård and Norwegian Knut Nystedt deconstruct traditional harmonies but increase musical and emotional effects with their magical shifting sounds.
Latvian Ēriks Ešenvalds weaves folktale with the records of Arctic explorers to thrilling effect while Jaakko Mäntyjärvi creates a piece of vocal theatre with his humorous look at the stereotype of Lapland folk music.
Norwegian Ola Gjeilo sets words from the Song of Solomon to a spare score evoking the terrible beauty of the northern lights.
Add beautiful pieces by the godfathers of Nordic and Baltic music, Jean Sibelius and Arvo Pärt, and we have a concert brimming with the elemental energy and compelling unpredictability of the north.
The concert included the Edinburgh première of The Lost Lichts, our recent commission from Ailie Robertson, setting the words of three female poets from north-east Scotland – a bright new star in this northern firmament.
Recent feedback from our concerts …..
“We both really enjoyed the concert last night – what a high standard! I have sung the Bernstein and I know how many challenges it presents. The other pieces certainly didn’t seem any easier. We really enjoyed the Argentinian Mass, which I noticed had many audience members silently foot-tapping. It was a terrific performance all round, and we are now looking forward to your concert of Renaissance music.”
“Wonderful. Great voices”
“Beautiful. Loved the mix of music and poetry.”
“Lovely well-balanced power, light and shade. Gibbons & Arcadelt my favourites.”
“A transcending repertoire skillfully presented for our delight. Glad I came!”
“Your guest soloists were excellent and really fitted the bill perfectly for the parts you asked them to sing. The Bernstein Ps 23 was glorious – that 14 year old voice was made for the solo. She’ll have an excellent voice in years to come, but she’ll never perform that solo as an adult as well as she did last night.”
The choir first worked with Scottish conductor Iain McLarty in November 2015 and is delighted to be continuing to work with him for season 2024/25.
