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Geoffrey comes up trumps
YETHOLM musician Geoffrey Emerson has come to the rescue of the Melrose-based Eildon Singers for their forthcoming Homecoming Scotland concert.
Ever since Hamish MacCunn’s The Jolly Goshawk – a setting of a traditional Border Ballad – was first performed in 1913, the only full score and the orchestral parts have been missing.
But Emerson, a horn player, conductor and music publisher, who has many years’ experience of such problems, has skilfully orchestrated the 20-minute long work from the vocal score.
Eildon Singers musical director Catherine Fish says when she planned a Homecoming concert for May 10, she very much wanted to find music with a strong connection to the Borders.
“I was so disappointed to find that these orchestral parts had disappeared, as this piece is rarely, if ever, performed,” she told TheSouthern.
“But Geoffrey has rapidly produced a complete score for a 40-plus strong orchestra.”
For this special concert in Melrose Parish Church, the choir will be joined by soloists from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and the organisers have received funding support from the Scottish Borders Council.
The Scottish Music Centre at Glasgow’s City Halls has also helped by photocopying the original vocal scores, which will later be added to their extensive library.
Fish added: “I am immensely grateful to Geoffrey, not only for organising the orchestra and arranging the music, but also for bringing the benefit of his years of experience to what I’m sure will be a wonderful evening of inspired Scottish singing by the Eildon Singers in this Homecoming year.”
The programme for the concert includes The Dowie Dens O’ Yarrow, an orchestral overture based on the poem of the same name and the Jolly Goshawk.
After the interval, the audience will be treated to five Scottish folk songs and poems by Hugh McDiarmid (1892-1978) and William Soutar (1898-1943), arranged by Borders musician, Amy Ward.
There will then be a performance of the famous fairy story, Bonny Kilmeny, arranged as a cantata for orchestra/choir/soloists, using words from a poem by James Hogg – a setting of one of the most famous fairy stories of the Borders, as set down by the Ettrick Shepherd.
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Weather for Galashiels
Thursday 24 May 2012
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