For more than forty years the Garleton Singers have been singing in St Mary's Parish Church in Haddington. On the first Saturday afternoon of this year's Fringe as a choir of eighteen they inaugurated St Vincent's as an official Fringe venue in the first of a series of three Saturday afternoon choral evensongs by invited choirs.
Stephen Doughty is also Director of Music at St John's, Princes Street and for this service chose George Dyson's setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. The Singers' anthem was Rachmaninov's Bogoroditsye Dyevo whilst the congregation joined in with the two hymns - Jesu, lover of my soul and The day thou gavest Lord, is ended.
St Vincent's Director of Music, Les Shankland, was at the organ and the Reverend Professor Gordon Graham gave a short and fascinating history of the service of Choral Evensong which has hardly changed in nearly four hundred and fifty years. Initially a combination of two services it was uniquely Anglican and today sung round the world with very little changed from its original. Gordon Graham, well known from his days in St Andrews and Aberdeen, is currently based in Princeton USA and for the past ten years has assisted at St Vincent's in the summer months.
St Vincent's opened in 1857 but it has now begun its career as a Fringe venue with the best possible start off.
Event: 3.30pm on Saturday 8th August 2015 and also Saturday 15th and 22nd August.