Happy New Year!

20+C+M+B+11

The gentlemen of the St Margaret's Schola would like to wish all their friends and benefactors a Happy and Holy 2011!

2010 was a very successful year for the Schola with a total of twenty-one sung liturgies. Particular highlights included the Tenebrae for the Sacred Triduum and Holy Mass in honour of our patroness, St Margaret. We are very grateful to everyone who has helped to make our work possible, particularly our celebrants and especially Monsignor Regan and the staff and parishioners at St Mary's Cathedral.

We hope you will be able to join us again in 2011, which we pray will be another successful year.

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.

Supporting the Schola

Even if you are not able to sing in the schola for we would very much appreciate your support. Please get in touch with us if you feel you can offer us anything useful – perhaps you have some old chant books which we could put to better use, for example?

If you would like to join our mailing list please send us an email at the address on the right with “Mailing List” as the subject. We will send you updates about our latest events and other information from time to time.

NEW DATE for First Vespers

Due to diary commitments, our first public Vespers will now take place on 19th March 2009 at 6.45pm, which will be Solemn Vespers for the Feast of St Joseph.

We look forward to seeing you at the Cathedral.

Forthcoming Events

Our recent Vespers for the Feast of St Joseph was a great success and special thanks are due to Fr Neil Ferguson OP for officiating on that occasion.

The Schola has decided to sing Vespers monthly for the time being and our next liturgy will be on 30th April and will be First Vespers for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker.

Looking further ahead there will be Vespers on 21st May for Ascension and on 18th June there will be First Vespers for the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

All liturgies will begin at 6:45 pm at St Mary's Cathedral.