Arran Singers’ summer concert is a real triumph
The first of the Arran Singers’ two summer concerts was held in the community theatre in the high school, Lamlash, last Saturday evening ... and what a wonderful variety of musical offerings the choir presented, all beautifully sung.
The choir got off to a swinging start with a lively rendition of Cole Porter’s ‘Just one of those things’, followed by the group Ain’t Misbehavin’s beautiful performance of another Porter standard, ‘Every time we say Goodbye’.
Then, in more serious vein, the choir did full justice to three pieces from Karl Jenkins’ Mass for Peace, ‘The Armed Man’, followed by the first of the evening’s fine soloists, with Aileen Wright’s lovely mezzo voice in Schubert’s setting of Shakespeare’s ‘To Sylvia’, sung in German.
The first half of the evening ended in decidedly lighter mood, with the gentlemen of the choir singing a barbershop-style arrangement of ‘The Whiffenpoof Song’, followed by the presentation of a generous cheque to Sheila Gilmore for the Arran Trust.
The second part opened with three beautiful but well contrasted sacred choral items, Stanford’s ‘Te Deum in B flat’, a fine rousing example of late Victorian Anglican church music, with a much more recent example in Archer’s ‘Creator of the Stars of Night’, while sandwiched between was Bruckner’s beautiful ‘Locus Iste’, a choral gem, beautifully sung by the unaccompanied choir.
John Cruickshank, though singing a show song, retained the serious tone in a sensitively sung ‘This nearly was mine’ from South Pacific. This was followed by another ensemble singing the jazz classic, ‘Moonglow’, mastering the tricky harmonies, and syncopations really well, with Lillian Smith a sensitive soprano soloist.
Spirituals form a valuable part of the repertoire of many groups, and the choir then sang two fine arrangements by Ken Burton – ‘Great Day’ and ‘Ready to Ride’, with Pat Eyres strongly idiomatic in the solo part.
The last two solo items came from one family. First, John Divine sang the haunting ‘Autumn Leaves’, his light baritone voice ideal for such a song. Then his teenage daughter, Emily, delighted the audience, and the choir too, with a lovely performance of ‘I could have danced all night’ from My Fair Lady.
More variety followed. Two lovely choral settings, Stanford’s beautiful arrangement of ‘My love’s an arbutus’, then Diana Hamilton’s setting of a poem by the late Neil Sillars (Ravey Bulloch’s father) entitled ‘Arran, Land of the Ever Young’. Then for something completely different – two examples of spoken music – Toch’s ‘Geographical Fugue’, followed by Diana Hamilton’s ‘Arran celebration’.
The concert closed with a fine setting of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’, rousingly sung by the full choir. So, all in all, a really enjoyable and well performed concert. And if you missed it the programme is being repeated in Lochranza Hall tonight (Saturday).