St Andrews and Fife Community Concert

Musical Fireworks!

The St Andrews and Fife Community Orchestra’s Winter Concert on 1 December was well supported despite dreich weather and the rival St Andrew’s Day weekend attractions. The evening began delightfully with a joint performance by the University of St Andrews Music Centre Children’s Choir, conducted by Jane Harrison, and the Youth Choir, which both came armed with handkerchiefs for the ‘Atishoo!’ of Duke Ellington’s Choo Choo, I gotta hurry home and donned hats and scarves for an arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter. The children, some as young as Primary 1, handled the counterpoint between the two choirs admirably. A similar pairing, between more and less experienced musicians, followed when the Music Centre Youth Orchestra joined StAFCO in an arrangement of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony and some rousing highlights from Mary Poppins. The programme also featured two soloists. Benedikt Lausberg was the soloist in a trumpet concerto by Johann Neruda, a near contemporary of Handel whose Royal Fireworks music came to mind when loud booms reached the Younger Hall from the St Andrew’s weekend fireworks display! Soloist and orchestra took the alarums in their stride. Angela Bell’s soprano voice has seldom been heard in St Andrews since she moved away, so it was wonderful to have her back as the soloist in three pieces, concluding with Adolphe Adam’s setting of the Christmas poem, O Holy Night. The concert was conceived and conducted by Gillian Craig, whose irrepressible enthusiasm for music-making was exemplified when she inadvertently sent the score for Sousa’s The Thunderer flying through the air – fortunately at the very end of the piece! The concert was given in association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s outreach programme, Connect. Front of House services were provided by the Rotary Club of St Andrews, which, thanks to generous sponsors and a retiring collection from members of the audience, raised £1500 for charity.