Community choir and orchestra perform with spring in their step
ARRIVING at St Columba’s Church on a wet and windswept Saturday evening, few in the audience could have expected to leave with the warm glow that the Shetland Community Choir and orchestra ultimately delivered, reviewer Justin Rhodes says.
What followed was an uplifting and thoughtfully curated programme that carried listeners on a journey through stories and landscapes.
The choir entered the stage dressed in black with flashes of bright green, a subtle nod to the season.
The first half showcased several choral works arranged by conductor Chris Horrix, including her adaptation of Da Selkie Sang, originally written for string quartet by Yell composer Adrian Brockless. Its tale of the seal wife longing for the sea was sensitively shaped, the harmonies well suited to the choir’s tone.
A spirited performance of the Unst Boat Song followed, vividly evoking the rhythm of oars cutting through heavy seas. The choir then offered a poised and well-tuned rendition of Stephen Paulus’s arrangement of the American hymn The Road Home, its gentle lines handled with assurance.
Just as the audience settled into what felt like a Scandinavian-leaning choral evening, the mood shifted. The orchestra joined the choir for Baz Chapman’s The River, a light, lyrical reimagining of a melody from Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, complete with a hint of jazz inflection. It provided a refreshing change of colour to close the first half.
After a short interval came one of the evening’s standout moments: Ola Gjeilo’s Northern Lights. This unaccompanied work, inspired by the mirrie dancers, blends early church sonorities with intricate modern harmonies. The choir delivered its demanding central sections with remarkable confidence and unity, their enjoyment evident throughout.
The orchestra then returned for a more substantial work: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region. Setting Walt Whitman’s poetry to music, this early but pivotal work marked a turning point in the composer’s career. The choir navigated the sweeping lines and dense orchestration with commitment, balancing the texture effectively.
The programme concluded with a lively selection from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Familiar melodies – Maria, America, Somewhere – were brought to life with crisp rhythms and impressive control through Bernstein’s notoriously tricky tempo changes. The brass section, in particular, added thrilling bursts of colour that resonated around the kirk. A warmly received encore of Somewhere sent the audience home with an extra lift.
Throughout the evening, the enthusiasm of both performers and audience was unmistakable. This was an ambitious programme – one that many amateur choirs and orchestras would hesitate to attempt – but it was delivered with skill, energy and evident joy. A thoroughly successful night of musicmaking.
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