Alvin M. Keeling 
UN CHOIR’s special anniversary will finally be celebrated in the flesh.
Garleton Singers will toast their 50th birthday – saying goodbye to virtual concerts – by hosting a special performance at St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington next month.
The concert will also celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The program will include I Was Glad, written for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 by Sir Hubert Parry.
However, the highlight of the evening will be the first-ever live performance of Nigel Don’s The Haddington Psalms.
This piece was written for the 50th anniversary of the choir, which took place during confinement.
Undeterred and led online by their conductor Stephen Doughty, the choir members recorded themselves at home and over 400 individual clips were combined into a virtual YouTube concert.
The piece, composed for brass ensemble, organ and percussion, opens with a jubilant instrumental fanfare; over the next five movements, the emotions of the Book of Psalms are expressed in a dramatic and colorful style, ending with a joyful setting of the last three psalms of the psalter.
Also included are three medieval plainsong fragments recently discovered at Haddington Library.
Clive Drewitt, president of the Garleton Singers, looked forward to the performance on Saturday June 11.
He said: “We are delighted that our two virtual concerts have raised over £1,200 for charity during the lockdown, and really delighted to be singing the Haddington Psalms together for the first time.
“We’re really going to make a ‘happy sound’!”
Visit garletonsingers.co.uk/concerts or Kesley’s Bookshop in Haddington, directly from choir members for tickets.
