The Glenalmond Choral Day

Six schools visited Glenalmond on Sunday 17 October to join forces with our own Chapel Choir for a day of rehearsals, culminating in a special Choral Day Service in Chapel. Four choir items sat alongside four hymns and five readings, with the readers all being selected from the visiting schools. Also included was a display of piping from the two College Pipe Bands.

Glenalmond College Pipe Bands M10

This year we were delighted to welcome singers from Ardvreck, Belhaven Hill, Cargilfield, Craigclowan, Kilgraston and Malsis schools, in total some 270 singers, who were enthusiastically supported by parents, staff and friends at the final, packed celebratory service.

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This was a busy, exhausting day for those concerned, but we were all left with a tremendous sense of fulfilment, both musical and spiritual, engendered by the togetherness and friendliness that such music making generates.

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Paisley Abbey

This term saw Chapel Choir preparing and performing the service of Choral Evensong, firstly in Chapel on Sunday 10 October and subsequently in the wondrous surroundings of Paisley Abbey on Tuesday 12 October. The choir really rose to the challenge, with a huge amount of music learned from scratch. The well known renaissance responses written by Smith of Durham were supported by Peter Aston's less familiar F major setting of the evening canticles. Howells' "O pray for the peace of Jerusalem" provided an opportunity for reflection and to allow the choir's well-judged sostenuto singing to drift around the vast spaces of the Abbey. A special event for all involved, and also an opportunity for Glenalmond's recently announced Oxford Organ Scholar, Tiffany Vong, to play on the legendary Abbey organ (original Cavaille-Coll pipework at its heart).