History

Choir History

Foundation and Early Years

Early in 1970 a well-known local music teacher, Catherine Welsh, approached East Lothian District Council with a request to include choral singing in their programme of evening classes held in Longniddry school.  The request was granted and in September 1970 the choir was born.  Immediately there was a good response resulting in a class of 30+ members in these early years.

Suitable choral music was selected for study during the session with an aim to end the year with a public performance.  In addition there was a concert of carols and Christmas music in December.  To do this a name for the choir would be required.  The story goes that during a drive through the Garleton hills one Sunday afternoon Catherine’s husband Douglas remarked “that would be a good name”.

Christmas concerts were held in December in Aberlady church and May concerts in the Brunton Hall Musselburgh, the first of the latter being a performance of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, by Coleridge Taylor, in May 1971.  For the Brunton Hall concerts choir numbers were increased with volunteers from Edinburgh choirs.  East Lothian Council (ELC) generously gave the choir free use of the Brunton Hall and a small grant to cover orchestral and soloist costs.  In the late 1980s the choir left the auspices of ELC to allow more freedom of activity and a committee was formed.  The last concert held in the Brunton Hall was in May 1994 which coincided with Catherine Welsh’s retirement.

Growth and Development

Stephen Doughty was appointed Music Director for the beginning of the 1994-5 season.  Under his inspiring musical leadership, and some energetic and innovative committees, the choir flourished musically and numerically.  By 2001 the choir was able to perform Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Edinburgh and Haddington with over 70 singers.  Four years later it presented Verdi’s Requiem in Edinburgh and St Andrews in a joint venture with a St Andrews choir and a total of around 150 singers.  By this time the choir presented at least three concerts per year, with a Christmas Concert, at least one Spring concert, and regular contributions to the Haddington Festival. The choir sometimes performs concerts as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

International Friendships

In May 2003 the choir made a visit to the Rhine Gorge area in Germany with two concerts being held in Koblenz.  This was followed in May 2007 with a visit to Florence, one concert being held in Florence and one in San Gimignano.  In 2011 the choir travelled to Poland to perform in Krakow, and in 2015 to Munich, where performances were given in a church and a castle.  The choir has hosted visits from the Atelier Choral d’Aubigny (Haddington’s twin town) in 2004, and from the Nymphenburger Kantatenchor of Munich in 2014.

Collaborations

In 2000 the choir performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with other local musical groups.  One of the soloists was the internationally-renowned bass Donald Maxwell, who had sung with the choir previously with Catherine Welsh.  The following year the choir performed a concert version of Beethoven’s Fidelio with the Edinburgh Symphony Orchestra.  In 2005 the choir took part in a Christmas concert with other groups, which also featured Ronnie Corbett.  Later it presented Scotland by Night with a libretto by Alexander McCall Smith, and in 2012 it performed I Landed with Seven Men by local composer Ken Johnston.  In 2016 we were honoured when internationally-known cellist Moray Welsh, the son of Catherine Welsh, performed with us at our Christmas concert. We have been fortunate over the last twenty years to have excellent accompanists, including Chick Lyall, George Wilson, and Caroline Cradock.

Broadening the Repertoire

Under Stephen Doughty’s leadership the choir’s musical taste widened further.  In the twenty-teens it performed works by Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Haydn, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Rossini, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Jenkins, John Rutter and many other composers.  The schedule of at least three concerts every year has been maintained with only three interruptions.  In 2010 the Christmas concert had to be cancelled owing to very heavy snow, in 2020 and 2021 most concerts were cancelled because of lockdowns during the Covid pandemic, and in March 2022 a concert had to be postponed after an outbreak of Covid among the singers.

Singing Online

While rehearsals and concerts were cancelled for eighteen months during the pandemic, Stephen kept the choir singing by means of online practice and recording.  We learnt and recorded ourselves singing the Haddington Psalms, a new piece written by choir member Nigel Don.  The recordings were edited and put together for a virtual performance in June 2021.

Recent Successes

We were glad in December 2021 to resume singing in our home base of St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington, with a concert appropriately entitled Everyone Burst Out Singing.  Since then we have performed Mozart’s Requiem, settings of the Mass by Dvorak, Haydn and Jenkins, and a summer concert of Songs from Stage and Screen.  In 2023 we were privileged to augment the RSNO Chorus (Stephen’s ‘other’ choir) in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in Edinburgh and Glasgow.  Stephen Doughty has now led the choir for over 30 years, and it has had just two Musical Directors in its 55-year history.

Choir history written by Ian Chuter, 2011, and updated by Nigel Lindsay, 2025.