- RNLI Celebrates its 200th Anniversary
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Date Posted: Mon, 14 Oct 2024
The orchestra committee have chosen to support the Royal National Lifeboat Institution as their chosen charity for our Autumn Concert on 2nd November 2024 as the RNLI celebrates its 200th anniversary. In the Scottish Borders region the RNLI operates a lifeboat station at Eyemouth and provides lifeguards at Coldingham Bay. The following is an extract from their website:
"In 2024, let’s get together to mark the RNLI’s special 200th year of lifesaving. 200 years is an amazing milestone for the RNLI, but everything we have achieved in that time has only been possible thanks to ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Since the RNLI was formed in 1824, people like you have formed crews and funded the kit and lifeboats to save lives at sea. RNLI lifesavers are counting on you to join us in our 200th year and we are proud to have you beside us.
Just look how far we’ve come together. Once, our volunteers launched wooden lifeboats with oars and sails and now we’re saving lives on motor-powered all-weather lifeboats with state-of-the-art technology and communications. In every single one of those lifeboats, the crew have been the same: unwilling to stand by and do nothing when people are in trouble. And the generosity of our supporters hasn’t changed either. It’s a powerful combination of kindness and courage – together we’ve saved more than 146,000 lives."
We hope that you will come to our concert and enjoy an evening of beautiful music and, in doing so, support the orchestra in raising money for the RNLI
- Autumn Concert 2024 - some notes on the programme
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Date Posted: Mon, 14 Oct 2024
Autumn Concert - Saturday 2nd November, 7pm, Melrose Parish Church
Programme
Mendelssohn: Overture The Fair Melusine
Mozart: Aria - Ruhe sanft mein holdes Leben from Zaide
Vorisek: Symphony in D
Vivaldi: String Concerto in D minor (RV128)
Chabrier: 2 movements from Suite Pastorale (Idyll and Danse Villageoise)
Conductor: James Young
Soprano: Claire Taylor
The concert opens with a popular overture by Felix Mendelssohn about Melusine, the mythical water-nymph who takes the form of a mermaid on Saturdays. The opening arpeggios perhaps anticipate the later river music of Wagner.
Mozart wrote his opera Zaide in 1780 but it remained unfinished - we feature the beautiful soprano solo aria from Act I sung by local favourite Claire Taylor.
Jan Vaclav Vorisek was a close friend of Schubert - his only symphony was composed in 1821 and is often compared to early Beethoven. It is an accessible work in four movements lasting around half an hour.
The French Romantic composer Chabrier is famous for his orchestral rhapsody Espana but wrote much more besides, orchestrating several piano works to form his Suite Pastorale, from which we have selected two attractive movements.
Our talented string section will also perform a short concerto in D minor by Vivaldi, similar in character to the Four Seasons.
Simon McCann
- Alexandra Mackenzie
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Date Posted: Sun, 11 Aug 2024
Alexandra Mackenzie is an internationally recognised cellist. She also teaches, does a little conducting and has recorded an album of music for cello and piano by female composers with pianist Ingrid Sawers. The album is called Beyond Twilight and she is performing with Ingrid at the Melrose Music Festival on Sunday 8th September in a concert entitled "The Borders and Beyond - music for cello and piano inspired by Scotland."
She spent eight years in New York where performances ranged from working with the legendary S.E.M. ensemble and playing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra to touring with a ragtime band and recording for Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and the Wu Tan Clan. During her time there she appeared at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall and Alice Tully and played concerts in 43 of America's 50 States.She has been a guest artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, a fellow at Tanglewood, and has participated in chamber music festivals across the globe. Live radio broadcasts, include Radio 3, Classic fm, NPR and German National Radio. Alexandra now lives in South East London. She has played with the English Chamber Orchestra for over a decade and is in frequent demand as a guest principal with orchestras across the UK.
Alexandra will be performing Haydn's Cello Concerto in C Major with the Borders Chamber Orchestra on Saturday 14th September 2024.
- Website offline on 29th May
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Date Posted: Mon, 20 May 2024
We have been notified by Making Music, the national organisation for amateur music groups that hosts our website, that they will be migrating all their member websites to a new server on Wednesday 29th May. This is likely to take all day and our website will be unavailable during this process.
- Photos and videos from our May concert now on the website
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Date Posted: Sun, 19 May 2024
Photos and two videos are now available from the Melrose Music Festival Preview Concert on 11th May in Melrose Parish Church. If you missed the concert then you can listen to the orchestra in performances of L'Aubade Heroique by Constant Lambert and A Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams.
- Melrose Music Festival 2024
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Date Posted: Sun, 19 May 2024
The orchestra will next be performing at the Melrose Music Festival in September with 2 concerts during the festival week:
Saturday 7th September 7pm in Melrose Parish Church
Borders Chamber Choir and Borders Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Marshall
Programme: includes Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor and Mozart Requiem
Saturday 14th September 7pm in Melrose Parish Church - Hidden Gems Rediscovered
Borders Chamber Orchestra conducted by Derrick Morgan, Assistant Conductor of the RSNO
Alexandra Mackenzie - Cello
Programme: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel - Overture in C Major
Franz Joseph Haydn - Concerto for Cello in C Major
Georges Bizet - Symphony in C
Further details about the Melrose Music Festival can be found on their website.
- Photos from Bach St John Passion now on our website
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
Photographs from the Bach St John Passion concert held on 30th March are now available on our website on the Photos page Attachment: 
- Marie Curie thank you
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
We have received a letter and certificate from Marie Curie to thank the orchestra and our supporters for the fantastic donation of £1024.46. Thank you to our musicians and audience members for raising this magnificent sum.
- Melrose Music Festival Preview Concert 11th May
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
The Borders Chamber Orchestra will next be performing at the Preview Concert for the Melrose Music Festival. The concert is on Saturday 11th May at 6:30pm in Melrose Parish Church.
The Festival, at its new dates of Saturday 7th - Sunday 15th September, will feature choral, orchestral and jazz evenings in its programme. Come and discover who will be performing at the 2024 Melrose Music Festival in September, where a world-class line-up of artists will be delivering a diverse range of music. All will be revealed at the Festival Preview on Saturday 11th May, at 6.30pm, in Melrose Parish Church.
Special guest at the Festival Preview will be Sir James MacMillan, who is one of today’s most successful composers and performs internationally as a conductor.
The event will be introduced by Robert Marshall, Melrose Music Festival Artistic Director, and artists performing at the Preview will include:
- Borders Chamber Orchestra conducted by Derrick Morgan, Assistant Conductor of the RSNO and featuring professional orchestral harpist Ellie Hetherington
- Ralph Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music in conjunction with Borders Chamber Choir
- Constant Lambert - Aubade heroique
- Sergei Rachmaninoff - Intermezzo from his opera Aleko
- Borders Chamber Choir
- Melrose Vocal Ensemble
Adults: £15
Concessions (students and unwaged): £10
Under 18s: free - Borders Chamber Orchestra conducted by Derrick Morgan, Assistant Conductor of the RSNO and featuring professional orchestral harpist Ellie Hetherington
- Derrick Morgan conducts our concert on 14th September
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
Derrick Morgan, Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, will be conducting us at our Melrose Music Festival Concert on Saturday 14th September. Derrick, who was born in the Scottish Borders and is now based in Glasgow, is already known to some of our orchestral musicians having conducted us at the MMF Preview Concert in May. He studied Musicology at the University of Edinburgh and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he received prizes for his achievements in conducting. Derrick is a musician who strives actively to engage with the community, collaborating with ensembles and communities across Scotland and we are excited to be working with him. Further information can be found on his website
- Eleanor Hetherington Concert Harpist
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
Eleanor Hetherington, who now lives in the Scottish Borders, will be our guest Harpist at the Melrose Music Festival Preview Concert on 11th May. She is a classically trained harpist with a deep-rooted background in Gaelic traditional music. Eleanor completed her schooling at St. Mary's Music School in Edinburgh before reading Music at the University of Leeds where she gained a First-Class Honours Degree. Eleanor then moved to Germany to study harp performance at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar.
Since graduating in 2008, Eleanor has performed extensively as an orchestral harpist with many prestigious orchestras, including, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne, Staatskapelle Weimar and Beethoven Orchestra Bonn.
Eleanor is now enjoying a diverse career as a performer and teacher in Scotland, working regularly with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and other leading UK orchestras, as well as guest performances in Norway and teaching at festivals such as the Edinburgh International Harp Festival.
Further information can be found on her website
- Sir James MacMillan Guest Speaker
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024
Sir James MacMillan will be the guest speaker at the Melrose Music Festival Preview Concert on 11th May. He is the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation and performs internationally as a conductor.
He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken, where he gained an undergraduate degree and then a PhD degree in 1987. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often working on education projects.
He came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. Isobel Gowdie was one of many women executed for witchcraft in 17th-century Scotland. Sir James founded the Cumnock Tryst festival in Scotland in 2014 and was awarded a Knighthood in the 2015 Queen's Birthday honours. Further biographical information can be found here
- Thank you Alison!
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Date Posted: Sat, 24 Feb 2024
The orchestra committee would like to express its grateful thanks to Alison Rushworth, our conductor for our Winter Concert, on behalf of all the musicians. Alison did a fantastic job getting through a busy single rehearsal on schedule and always with good humoured encouragement. She conducted the concert with great aplomb and very generously waived her conducting fee, enabling the orchestra to make a larger donation to Marie Curie. The committee presented her with two bottles of locally produced craft gin and two Borders Chamber Orchestra engraved gin goblets as a token of our gratitude.
The photograph from left to right: Nicky (Secretary), Paul (Treasurer & Webmaster), Alison, Simon (Chair), Cath (Orchestra Leader & Music Librarian) and Gillian (Charities & Front of House)
- Photos and videos from our Winter Concert now on our website
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Date Posted: Sat, 24 Feb 2024
Photographs from the Winter Concert are now available to view on our website on the Photos page along with some video clips from the concert.
- Marie Curie funds raised
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Date Posted: Sat, 24 Feb 2024
Our chosen charity for our Winter Concert was Marie Curie whose nurses help with the provision of end-of-life care at home for people in the Borders. We collected £274.46 in donations at the concert and the orchestra has been able to contribute a further £750 from our ticket sales to make a magnificent total donation to Marie Curie of £1,024.46. The photograph shows our Treasurer, Paul, with Caroline Green, a fundraising volunteer with Marie Curie in the Borders, at the concert on Saturday.
- Bach St John Passion – Borders Chamber Choir in association with Borders Chamber Orchestra
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Date Posted: Sat, 24 Feb 2024
Borders Chamber Choir will be performing the St John Passion on Saturday 30th March at 2pm in Melrose Parish Church with 5 professional soloists and accompanied by the Borders Chamber Orchestra.
Tom Raskin (Evangelist) is a tenor with the BBC Singers and The Sixteen and has performed many roles both in the UK and abroad
Georgie Malcolm (Soprano) is fast establishing herself as a versatile singer of opera, oratorio and song.
Judy Brown (Alto) is a Scottish singer based in London, singing a wide range of early, classical and contemporary music for mezzo-soprano/contralto. She is an experienced recitalist, consort, opera and oratorio singer.
Chris Elliott (Tenor) is a Lyric Tenor with bases in Scotland, Northumberland, London &
New York. He is best known for opera and oratorio
Jon Stainsby (Bass) is a lyric baritone establishing a varied career in opera, oratorio and recital.
Tickets are available online from Borders Chamber Choir on Trybooking.com and at the door: £15, Concessions £10.
- Winter Concert 17th February 2024
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Date Posted: Sun, 21 Jan 2024
Our winter concert will take place at Melrose Parish Church on Saturday 17th February 2024 at 7pm
Conductor: Alison Rushworth
Leader: Cath Cormie
Soprano: Claire Taylor
PROGRAMME
Mozart: Overture to La Clemenza di Tito
Mozart: Aria "Parto, parto ma tu ben mio" from La Clemenza di Tito
Dvorak: Czech Suite Op.39
Interval
Elgar: Serenade for Strings Op.20
Beethoven: Symphony No.2
TICKETS
Adults £10, 18 years or under free. Tickets may be purchased in advance on our website (click here) or at the door on the evening of the concert. Programme and interval refreshments are included in the ticket price.
- Marie Curie will be our chosen charity for Winter Concert
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Date Posted: Tue, 9 Jan 2024
The orchestra committee has chosen Marie Curie to be the charity that we will support at our Winter Concert on 17th February 2024. Marie Curie is the leading charity for end of life care in the UK. They run a number of hospices in the UK, the nearest being in Edinburgh, but they are best known in the Borders for providing Marie Curie nurses to help care for terminally ill patients in their own homes. There will be an opportunity for audience members to donate at the end of the concert and Marie Curie daffodil badges will be available as this will be the start of their annual daffodil fundraising campaign. For more information, see: www.mariecurie.org.uk/
- Donation handover to Postnatal Depression Borders
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Date Posted: Sun, 26 Nov 2023
Barbara Wright, Chair of Postnatal Depression Borders, accepts the donation of £400 raised for our associated charity at our inaugural concert in November.
- Charity Donation to PND Borders
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Date Posted: Thu, 9 Nov 2023
The orchestra committee are pleased to announce that our Inaugural Concert on 4th November raised £400 for PND Borders, our chosen charity for this concert, which we have paid into their bank account, Thank you to all who donated. We will announce the charity to be associated with our next concert shortly.
- Photos of our Inaugural Concert now on our website
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Date Posted: Thu, 9 Nov 2023
Photographs and two 30 second video clips of our Inaugural Concert and rehearsal on 4th November are now on the website on our Photos page. There are photos of the orchestra and Borders Chamber Choir who also had their first performance.
- Borders Chamber Orchestra Winter Concert
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Date Posted: Wed, 8 Nov 2023
Our next concert is scheduled for 17 February 2024 at Melrose Parish Church when we will be directed by the talented Edinburgh-based conductor Alison Rushworth. The programme is almost finalised. This concert will be ticketed, adults £10, 18 and under free. We very much look forward to that concert and to seeing you there.
- Borders Chamber Choir
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Date Posted: Fri, 20 Oct 2023
The Borders Chamber Choir is Scotland’s newest choir. It is made up of gifted amateurs and semi-professionals and seeks to perform a wide variety of accompanied and unaccompanied music, from Carver to Tallis, Bach to Purcell, and Poulenc to MacMillan. Amongst our aims are promoting young Scottish/Scottish-trained musicians/soloists as well as using the best orchestral players from in and around the Borders.
"The choir are delighted to be giving their first performance on 4th November at the inaugural concert of the Borders Chamber Orchestra - a ‘showcase’, if you like, of who we are and how we sound. Our conductor will introduce our short programme, which will include a variety of pieces in a variety of styles."
"We begin rehearsals proper in the New Year, preparing for our inaugural concert - a performance of Bach’s St John Passion on the Saturday immediately prior to Easter 2024, accompanied by the Borders Chamber Orchestra. Our Evangelist will be Tom Raskin, a tenor who trained in Scotland and went on to sing with The Sixteen and the BBC Singers. Beyond that, we will present a regular programme of concerts throughout each year as well as taking part in the Melrose Music Festival."
The Choir is the creation of its Director, Robert Marshall, a professionally trained conductor, choir trainer, and singer who has extensive experience making music in the Borders and beyond. Having studied under Kenneth Leighton at Edinburgh University, Robert trained as an orchestral conductor (founding the Edinburgh University Chamber Orchestra along the way, which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year). He also set up and conducted the Glasgow Chamber Choir (which will turn 30 next year).
He went on to become the Chorus Master of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union, performing with professional orchestras including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the BT Scottish Ensemble in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and further afield.
As a singer, Robert began as a Lay Clerk at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, before joining Cappella Nova and singing with a range of choirs and organisations performing oratorios and performing the part of the Evangelist. On Good Friday this year he was the Evangelist in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion given in this very church.
Robert was recently appointed the Artistic Director of the Melrose Music Festival for 2024 and beyond. He lives in the Borders.
