On 23 April I am going to be conducting the Open University Choir in a concert which marks the extensive restoration of a rather fine pipe organ which is now housed in a modestly-sized church in Stony Stratford. The interest for members of the Club may be that this organ was originally built for St George\u2019s Church, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, where Bill Bowie, Head of the Music Department at Royal High from the mid-forties until 1970, was the last organist before the church had to close in the early 1960s because of structural insecurity. I know that some pupils actually sang in the choir at St George\u2019s and other former pupils may remember singing in concerts alongside the St George\u2019s Singers which Bill kept going after the church closed. The central spine of my programme will be music written by composers associated with St George\u2019s and will include three of Bill Bowie\u2019s published anthems which were written for the school choir.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nAn additional aspect of the concert is that two of the earlier composers represented were apparently also former pupils of the High School. John Thomson (1805-41) was the son of the first minster of St George\u2019s and contributed to a hymn book his father published for use in his church; later the son became the first Professor of Music at Edinburgh University. Alexander Mackenzie (1847-1935) ended up as Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London: you will already know one of his compositions for he wrote the music for the school song (which is not, however, in the concert).<\/p>
\r\n\r\nThese are the particular connections that other former pupils might find of interest, but there is much else in the programme as well. The poster and standard press release follow below. Should anyone wish to know more I can be contacted on bill@pld-uk.com<\/em> .<\/p> \r\n\r\nBill Strang<\/p> \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe OU Choir travels to Stony Stratford for its 2016 spring concert.<\/p> \r\n \r\nCelebrating restoration: inaugural choral concert with the restored Father Willis organ at St Mary and St Giles Church<\/p> \r\n \r\nJohn Rutter\u2019s Gloria<\/p> \r\nMotets by Anton Bruckner<\/p> \r\nOrgan music by Charles-Marie Widor <\/p> \r\nAntiphonary for brass and percussion by Liz Lane<\/p> \r\nand music by composers associated with St George\u2019s Church in Edinburgh for which the organ was originally built<\/p> \r\n \r\nBill Strang director<\/p> \r\nPaul Daggett organist<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 23 April I am going to be conducting the Open University Choir in a concert which marks the extensive restoration of a rather fine pipe organ which is now housed in a modestly-sized church in Stony Stratford. The interest for members of the Club may be that this organ was originally built for St […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royalhigh.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}