Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for the Edinburgh Schola!

Our hope is to render praise unto God through the singing of Gregorian chant, to preserve the ancient music of the Church in this way, and to facilitate and promote the Chant throughout the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh

Mgr Regan has kindly allowed us to use St Mary’s Cathedral in the east end of Edinburgh as the base for our weekly practices and monthly Vespers.

The Schola meets most weeks on Thursday evenings for rehearsal or to chant Vespers.

In order to promote chant, we will also have around half a dozen Masses with Gregorian chant each year. These will be spread among the deaneries and will begin in Autumn 2009.

This website aims to provide information for both current and prospective members and all who are interested in our work.

Joining the Schola

Anyone can join the schola as long as they are keen to sing! There is no need to be able to read Gregorian chant notation. We will teach you how to read the the notation, how to develop fluency in Latin pronunciation, etc. Plainsong is very easy to sing and given patience and experience anyone can sing even the more complex pieces.

Members will need to commit to a rehearsal each Thursday evening lasting for two hours and around six Saturdays a year for the deanery Masses.

Membership of the schola is also restricted to men. Gregorian chant has always been sung by single sex choirs since it was developed by monks and nuns. We don’t have the resources to run a ladies' schola, but we are committed to encouraging both men and women to sing chant in our work to promote it throughout the Archdiocese. We hope that women will be able to support us by joining us for our liturgies throughout the year.

If you are interested in joining please contact us using the details to the right - and if you have any questions about joining please do not hesitate to drop us a line.

Thursday Evening

Owing to various other commitments in the Cathedral diary, Thursday has been chosen as the evening for our weekly rehearsal and Vespers.

Therefore, the first rehearsal will take place on Thursday 5th February. Please drop us an email or leave a voicemessage if you intend to join us.

We will gathering each week in the Cathedral porch between 18:00 and 18:15 before walking over to the house and will be finished by 20:15. If you cannot attend the first rehearsal or do not hear about it in time, please also get in touch with us. We hope you will be able to join us for our second rehearsal on the 12th.

Our first Vespers will probably take place on 19th or 26th February, depending on our progress - we will confirm this by 13th February.