Singing for Scotland

The Strathclyde University Chamber Choir arrives in the area for a five-concert tour.

By BARRY DAVIS
From this weekend, fans of renaissance, Scottish and English folk music, and more modern material will have the opportunity to hear one of the top a cappella ensembles in the business when the Strathclyde University Chamber Choir arrives in the area for a five-concert tour. The choir will perform in Tiberias on Saturday, followed by concerts at Jerusalem’s St. George’s Cathedral (Sunday), Dar an Nadwa in Bethlehem (Monday) and the Arab Evangelical Episcopal School Hall in Ramallah (Tuesday), with the closing performance at the Arab Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa next Thursday.
The 24-member Strathclyde University Chamber Choir was founded in 1980, at a time when small concert choirs were not exactly in vogue in that part of the world. However, the choir soon grew in popularity, as demand for a cappella performances of renaissance and baroque music, as well as contemporary songs, grew.
Over the last three decades the choir, which includes students, alumni,university staff members and some singers from outside the confines ofacademia, has performed a wide range of works across Scotland andEngland and has toured Europe, including Spain, Germany and Poland.
This is the choir’s first visit to this part of the world, and itsrepertoire here will encompass medieval music, sacred works, madrigals,folk songs, sea shanties and poems by Robert Burns and other Scottishpoets set to music.
For more information about the choir’s concerts here, go to: www.churchofscotland.org.il.