Scotland is celebrating St Andrew’s Day in style this weekend with a series of events across towns and cities in celebration of a national day of singing.
Part of Scotland’s Winter Festivals programme, the three-day event, launched by singing sensation Michele McManus, will see a series of singing events take place in Perth, Edinburgh, Paisley, Glasgow, Dundee, Largs and St Abbs.
People of all ages, backgrounds and vocal talent are being encouraged to get involved, with the aim of getting the whole of Scotland singing.
Scotland’s leading traditional singer Sheena Wellington was so excited when she received an email from Hands Up For Trad which seeks to increase the profile and visibility of Scottish Traditional Music about this brand new project.
”As a very proud native of Dundee, I know it is a singing city, with a great musical heritage, and I thought ‘let’s see what we get going,’ and passed the message on to as many groups as I could,” said Sheena.
”The response has been amazing and people are still coming on board now, so it’s going to be a great programme with something for everyone.”
The idea behind Scotland Sings is to bring new participants and audiences together through singing at events running from today, tomorrow and Sunday.
The fun kicks off today with primary seven pupils from St Mary’s singing at Verdant Works. Tomorrow there will be singing in the city centre and beyond, including a Cash For Kids Concert in the Marryat Hall, a Cappuccino Concert in the Wighton Heritage Centre at which The Courier’s own Helen Brown will be singing choirs and groups in shopping centres, historic sites, churches and community venues.
The event includes choirs, song groups, musical societies, trios, duos and soloists, singing a variety of classical, rock, folk, pop, barbershop, gospel and rap.
”Our message is that we’re singing and we’re good at it,” said Sheena. ”Dundee and its surrounding area can boast some of the best singers, choirs and song groups in the country and we are going to make sure that Scotland notices.
”We have done a pretty good job from what was a standing start and there’s a fantastic variety of lovely songs and singers. The public will be fair enchanted to be going about their Christmas shopping listening to great music and raising money or popping into one of the many concerts over the weekend.”
The weekend finishes with an Advent carol concert at St Paul’s Cathedral at 6pm on Friday.
Meanwhile, in Perth, Horsecross Arts has created The Singing Trail a circuit of three public venues around Perth City centre where passers-by can enjoy performances by a range of Perth and Kinross vocal groups.
Starting in the foyer of Perth Concert Hall, then moving on to St John’s Shopping Centre and then to Perth High Street, each group will perform for 10 minutes in each location between 10.20am and 3.10pm on this busy shopping day.
Again, there’s something for everyone from Scottish traditional and Gaelic song to rock and from barbershop to classical.