Cadenza at the Fringe 2019

Cadenza is delighted to be performing in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe again this year – we’ve been a consistent feature at the world’s largest arts festival for over two decades. Following five sell-out concerts, Cadenza is delighted to be returning to the stunning surroundings of Greyfriars Kirk for another exciting programme of choral music, performing Puccini’s magnificent Messa di Gloria alongside Haydn’s Te Deum and Insanae et Vanae Curae and a Scottish première performance of Janet Wheeler’s Alleluia. Tickets – priced £15, £13 (concesssions) and £4 (children) are available now from choir members or via the Fringe Box Office.

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Posted: Thursday 27 June 2019 at 2:21 pm

Another £2000+ raised for charity

Cadenza performs concerts on behalf of charities as part of our choir year. These typically take place in Spring, and allow us to show off a lighter side of our repertoire while raising funds for deserving causes. 2019 was no exception, and across two concerts – one in Edinburgh, the other in Athelstaneford in East Lothian – we raised over £2000 split across four separate charities. If you’d like Cadenza to make a real impact to your fundraising, please get in touch!
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Posted: Saturday 15 June 2019 at 8:48 am

“An excellent performance”

At exactly 6.15pm yesterday (Monday 17th), John Brunning introduced the now annual Classic FM/Making Music Christmas collaboration to showcase “the most talented amateur musicians” in the UK. If you missed the live broadcast, you can catch up using the Classic FM player (we’re on about 1hr 11mins in) – but be quick, as it is only around for seven days!

From a “torrent of entries” this year, Making Music had selected an initial long list of 10, then narrowed it down to the final five, one of whom would be featured at 6.15pm every evening this week.

We had chosen, as our submission to Making Music, Kenneth Leighton’s beautiful and haunting arrangement of the 16th century “Coventry Carol”. It is a lullaby sung by the mothers of ‘doomed’ children, and was traditionally performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called “The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors”, depicting the story of Herod’s massacre of the innocents. Brunning described our performance as “excellent”.

We won’t know till the end of the week if there are any other ensembles from Scotland, but we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that Scotland was represented again – and “excellently”. We were also delighted that Brunning didn’t forget to namecheck our two splendid soloists.

Posted: Tuesday 18 December 2018 at 12:27 pm

Cadenza to feature on Classic FM again

Hot off the press, we are delighted to confirm that Cadenza has once again been selected as one for the final five Making Music groups to be broadcast on Classic FM Drive on Monday 17th December at around 6.15pm.

The remaining four winners have not been publicly announced, but we are proud and delighted to be at least one ensemble which will be flying the flag for Scotland. We are first up again, so tune in (100-102FM) or listen online to John Brunning’s Drive show on Monday 17th around 6.15pm to hear us. The other 4 finalists will be at the same time respectively Tuesday – Friday.

John will be playing another track from our popular Christmas CD Bright Star, a beautiful arrangement of a well-known carol, featuring two soloists from the soprano section of the choir, Lynne Samuel and Helen Heatlie. Tune in or listen again to find out which carol and what John Brunning has to say about it.

May we take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a good New Year in 2019!

Posted: Saturday 15 December 2018 at 8:53 pm

“A superb evening of choral music” …

…that was what Tim Wilcock said about Cadenza at the Fringe 2018 in his review published on Fringe Review, in which he awarded us a ‘Highly Recommended Show” rating. He poured universal praise on the concert, from John Cameron’s arrangement of Elgar’s Lux Aeterna which was “a beautifully reflective opening, building to a sound that soared around this iconic Edinburgh venue” to Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater, where “the choir pulled off this difficult work with aplomb, with crisp, bright entries, superb diction and a rousing Amen“. The highlight of the concert, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms performed 100 years to the day since the composer’s birth, was recognised as “a fitting celebration of the event with a faultless performance”.
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Posted: Tuesday 28 August 2018 at 10:48 pm

Fringe Box Office Sell-Out

Cadenza’s annual performance in the Fringe is on 25 August – and still with a few days to go, we’re delighted to say that the Fringe Box Office has completely sold out of their allocation of tickets! But don’t worry – it’s not too late! There will still be tickets available on the door – so be sure get in touch with us to reserve tickets, or to get to Greyfriars Kirk early to guarantee your seat at one of the hottest tickets in town! Doors open shortly after 7pm, with the concert itself starting at 8pm.
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Posted: Thursday 23 August 2018 at 12:51 am

£217 raised for Waverley Care

A group of Cadenza members braved the cold and rain to bring a bit of musical festive cheer to the Christmas Market in Edinburgh’s East Princes Street Gardens yesterday evening. They performed a selection of carols while volunteers from Waverley Care collected donations from passers-by. A grand total of £217.63 was donated by the kind visitors to the market.

Karen Docwra, Senior Fundraiser at the charity (and alto with the choir) said: “It was a fantastic hour of carol singing. Cadenza’s support is helping us to make a very real difference to the lives of many people across Scotland who are living with HIV or Hepatitis C”

Posted: Thursday 14 December 2017 at 4:42 pm

Christmas Concert Updates

We hope you’ll be able to join us at Polwarth Parish Church this coming Saturday 9 December at 19:30 for Cadenza at Christmas. Our annual festive mix of old and new carols, and a chance for you to join in too! Full details available on our Concerts page, and tickets are still available to buy online via Eventbrite or at on the door.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our direct control, Cadenza will not be appearing as part of the Erskine Christmas Carol Concert this year as previously advertised. However, the event itself is still going ahead and we’d encourage you to attend on Thursday 7 December, from 18:30, at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church. More details on this concert can be found on the Erskine website.

Posted: Monday 4 December 2017 at 1:42 pm

Cadenza Open Rehearsal 2017

Do you think you would like to sing with Cadenza? We welcome enquiries from enthusiastic singers of all voices who can:

• tackle and enjoy music in a range of different styles, mostly a cappella
• read music
• memorise short pieces
• do individual work on repertoire between rehearsals, and
• commit to regular attendance.

If this sounds like you, you are most welcome to come to our Open Rehearsal on Wednesday 4 October 2017 at Broughton St Mary’s Church, Bellevue Crescent, EH3 6NE, from 7.30 to 9.45 pm.

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Posted: Wednesday 6 September 2017 at 4:54 pm

Congratulations @CadenzaChoir!

Another very successful Fringe concert been and gone, and we’re still on a bit of high.  We had a large and wonderful audience who seemed to be hanging so much on every note that you could almost hear a pin drop in the quieter passages, and then not only applauded with enormous enthusiasm but also cheered at the end of the concert.  Thank you!!  It’s so encouraging to have such warm support throughout the performance.

Comments received so far since the concert:

“Congratulations @CadenzaChoir on a fantastic Fringe performance.  A beautiful blend of voices filling the warm acoustic of Greyfriars Kirk.”

“The concert was excellent. I especially enjoyed the Requiem and the Monteverdi. You sounded great when you started to sing. The sound was very bright.”

And one audience member couldn’t imagine that even professional choirs would sound any better than Cadenza did on Saturday…. praise indeed!

Posted: Wednesday 30 August 2017 at 12:04 pm