The Choir
Peebles Old Parish Church Choir is an Institution within an Institution. From well outwith the living memory of even its oldest members it has introduced the services, led the hymn singing, sung anthems and entertained those entering the walls of the church with quality music. Not many churches these days can claim to have a choir.
Anne Derrick (chief bellringer) has been a member all her adult life and is the third generation to do so following in the footsteps of her mother and her grandmother. Anne says “It’s been such a privilege – and such fun too! The musical experience of singing quality music in harmony with a bunch of other like-minded people is so rewarding and the fact that we do so as an important part of Sunday worship makes it even more meaningful, both for us as singers and for the members of the congregation”.
A short history of the choir is available on our Virtual Tour – It can be seen HERE
Many members have a similar story – listen to the conversation below.
However, it is not a stuffy or exclusive club for just Peebles folk. Whilst the current webmaster and his wife are considered newcomers with only 15 years service the latest recruit has been with the choir for only a very short time and is already an established and welcome participant.
But, times are not normal and the choir no longer meets on a Thursday evening in the Song School to rehearse nor on a Sunday morning to lead the hymns. However it does meet every Thursday at the usual time using Zoom (see the photo above} and has a session led by Sarah Brown our Musical Director and organist.
Photo of recent zoom session
The first result of these sessions was to have virtually recorded hymns(audio only) on the online Lessons and Carols Service that was aired on 20th December last year. This has been followed up by regular and continuing contributions to the Online Sunday Services, including vocal soloists. Many of these were presented as videos.
A selection of these videos can be viewed by clicking on this button.
Church Music
Sarah, as organist, contributes regularly to the peeblesold.online digital worship with her organ voluntaries. But there are two other choir members, Andrew Henthorn and Anne Derrick, who also lend their talents to this popular feature of the Sunday online services. Once again these voluntaries are presented as videos.
The videos produced can be seen by clicking on the button below
In 2020 a major project was the Virtual Festival of lessons and Carols..