Rudsambee

While Mike was off at one of his full-day Scottish songs workshops, Japhur and I headed down the the Farmer's Market. Not only did we get meat for the week, but we also got a Christmas card from Anghele, the Big Issue vendor we buy from regularly, and a leaflet about a choir concert in Canongate kirk by a group named Rudsambee.

Mike was game for a Christmas concert when he got home so the two us trekked over to Canongate and took our seats in the pew. It was a well put together concert, made up of disparate pieces that were brought together by the style of the choir. They sang everything from a 10th century hymn to a choral piece written last year by a Minnesotan named Abbie Betinis as a singing christmas card to her family. In case anyone wants some choral recommendations (and so that I can remember which pieces I liked), out of the 24 songs performed my favourites were:

• Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul -- Swedish
• Immanuel os i natt -- a very unusual, to anglo ears, Icelandic carol
• Lux Aurumque -- an Eric Whitacre piece
• In the Bleak Midwinter -- the Christina Rossetti poem put to song by Rudsambee's founder
• Amuworo ayi otu nwa -- a Nigerian carol
• O Morgenstern -- German
• Soorb -- By Armenian Komitas Vardapet
• Nata Lux -- from Morten Lauridson's Lux Aeterna