We had a wonderful evening in Crieff last night as we were invited along to Crieff Choral Group's first event after the long lock down! They were in fine voice and everyone was quite excited to be singing together and in public with a live audience after so long rehearsing online. They were also working for the first time with their new conductor Ulrike Wutscher, who has been readily welcomed into the group and who created a truly lovely programme.
Wonderfully for us their programme included a version of our song, The Gean Trees. We had suggested that we might collaborate in some way and this song fitted their theme for the evening.
We asked the fabulously talented Helen Mackinnon, composer, to adapt the song for a choral group and she has created a truly memorable piece for piano and voices.
In addition we all took part in a tree planting event in Crieff as part of the Queen's Green Canopy. It was a bit of a damp day but we enjoyed an outdoor rendition of the song, as well as the planting of a gean tree.
At Macrosty Park for the planting!
The choir have found a new home at Strathearn Arts and we were delighted to be there when Helen's arrangement of our song had its premiere!
The Gean Trees is taken from a poem by Violet Jacob, one of our favourite writers and someone who has inspired some other songs we have written including The Shepherd to his Love and The Jacobite Lass. Syd wrote the melody some time ago but we finally found the right words to enhance this piece. You can hear our version of it on our music page The Gean Trees. do tell us what you think!