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An Island That Yearns For Saints: Music in honour of Mungo, Ninian & Brigid
Strathclyde University Chamber Choir directed by Alan Tavener
Alan Tavener and the Strathclyde University Chamber Choir present a programme of music in honour of St Mungo and other saints. Chant from the office of St Mungo is taken from the mediaeval Spruston breviary. There will also be a performance of ‘Ninian’s Gift’, a collaboration by the composer Tom Cunningham and the writer Alexander McCall Smith among other pieces. No booking is required for this event.
Alan Tavener is a music graduate of the University of Oxford (where he was Heberden Organ Scholar at Brasenose College and when he gained diplomas in organ performance and teaching) and an educational research graduate of the University Strathclyde (where he focussed on the social, educational and health benefits of singing), where he was also Director of Music with responsibility for teaching, the promotion of a professional concerts series, and the direction of a wide range of student choirs, orchestras and ensembles, including Strathclyde University Chamber Choir which he continues to direct, and which has toured many times in Europe and further afield, has undertaken recorded and live radio broadcasts, and has released a CD of Romantic Scottish part-songs.
Tom Cunningham studied composition at Morley College, London, and his compositions have been performed by the RSNO, LSO, RLPO, CBSO, Hallé, Cappella Nova, the National Boys Choir of Scotland, the Flemish Radio Choir and many orchestras and choirs throughout the world. Since returning to Edinburgh in 2003, he has completed five commissions for the National Youth Choir of Scotland and sixteen collaborations with Alexander McCall Smith as well as other works for orchestra and choir.
Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. For many years he was a professor of Medical Law and worked in universities in the UK and abroad before turning his hand to writing fiction. He has written and contributed to more than 100 books including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children’s books.
Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds twelve honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America. In 2007 he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country. In 2015 he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature. In 2020, he will receive the honorary fellowship of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.
