Dumfries Choral Society is performing well-loved songs written by composers from all four of the home nations at St John’s Church, Newall Terrace, on Saturday, November 16, at 7.30pm.
Ana Price, Dumfries Choral Society secretary said they will be steered along the way for Around the British Isles in Eighty Minutes, by their musical director, Jamie Brand MBE, and accompanied by highly-acclaimed pianist, Katharine Durran. Glasgow-based solo baritone, Colin Murray, will join them.
Tickets are £12 (students £5 and children free) from the Midsteeple or at the door (cash only), and refreshments will be served during the evening.
Ana said: “We have welcomed new members on board for the venture which begins with Toward the Unknown Region – the first major choral piece by English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams. The piece sets to music the words of American poet, Walt Whitman, and established Williams as an important figure in English music when it was first performed in Yorkshire in 1907.
“The choir then crosses over to Ireland for Charles Stanford’s rousing, Songs of the Sea – which they are performing in recognition of the centenary of the Irish composer’s death in 1924.”
There will also be three beautiful Welsh songs – Daffodils-Cennin Aur by Mansel Thomas – and popular folk songs, The Golden Wheat and Ash Grove.
The final destination will be Scotland, represented by Ken Johnston’s I Landed with Seven Men.
Spoken narrative and rearrangements of well-known traditional songs will tell the story of Charles Edward Stuart and the Jacobite rebellion.
The audience will be transported to Prestonpans, Carlisle and Culloden before the lyrical escape “….over the sea to Skye”.
A date for the diary is that the Choral’s popular, winter-warming Christmas concert will be held on Monday, December 23, in St John’s.
Meanwhile, potential new members for future concerts are invited to contact the Dumfries Choral Society secretary via email at: [email protected].