Music
Les Sirenes
The Mackintosh Church at Queen's Cross, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
four stars
IN 2012, the all-female choir directed by Andrew Nunn, made up of students and recent graduates from what had only recently been renamed the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, won the UK Choir of the Year title, and the young women are still the only Scottish victors in the competition's history. Opportunities to hear them are, however, remarkable rare, so it was little surprise that this programme in one of the glories of Glasgow's CRM heritage drew a good crowd.
Nor could Nunn be blamed for pushing the boat out with the repertoire, and the remarkable thing was that a programme quite as eclectic as this one held together as well as it did. It really was a showcase for an ensemble that now numbers 30 and combines voices who have been present since the choir's inception with current undergraduates. A complete performance of Britten's Ceremony of Carols, perfectly site-specific if not always so stable of tempo, was preceded by Part (Peace Upon You Jerusalem) and Poulenc (Litanies a la Vierge Noire) with BBC SSO harpist Helen Thomson also contributing her lovely playing in Daniel Burton's arrangement of Gaelic carol Taladh Chriosda.
After the interval the audience also had an opportunity to sing (rather well, it turned out) with Hark, the Herald and O Come All Ye Faithful included in a seasonal selection that began with Elgar and included John Rutter and The Coventry Carol on the road to a brace of Billy Joel tunes and a very clever and funny arrangement of Bonne Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero by Paul Ayres. Some distance from seasonal, that one, but no-one was complaining.
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