Sketching & Song in Rosslyn Chapel (again), Heriot-Watt Choir

Heriot-Watt at Rosslyn Chapel, blue pen & black biro on concert programme, 28x21cm

Last Saturday, March 23rd, the Chamber Choir of Heriot-Watt University, Excelsior Per Cantum, were performing in Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh. I was there for the second year in a row and again I sat in on the rehearsal.

Last year I had my sketchbook - http://landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sketching-song-in-rosslyn-chapel-heriot.html - but this time I'd forgotten it. I drew in blue pen and biro on the concert programme, sitting in a side aisle to get a different viewpoint.

The music was choral, 'South American Baroque'. Excelsior Per Cantum were as excellent as always.

Find out more Heriot-Watt music on the Heriot-Watt website or by emailing Steve King to be added to their music mailing list - s.king@hw.ac.uk.

Running a mixed-media workshop, then Beethoven in St Giles.

Last Sunday, 17 February, was a full day. I was leading an all-day mixed-media workshop for members of the Livingston Art Association. Our venue was the excellent studio in the Howden Park Centre.

We started with pencil sketches then worked into them using watercolour, oil pastel, chalk pastel and crayon. Finishing off by using bold black ink. Then people tried painting in watercolour with no underdrawing - a great way to free up one's work. It was a lovely relaxed group and the results were really good.

 

Sketching in St Giles

In the evening I was back St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh for the second Sunday in a row. Heriot-Watt Orchestra were playing, after the Heriot-Watt choirs had sung there last week. Both part of the regular St Giles' at Six series of free concerts. The cathedral was packed and the music was great. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and a really stirring shorter piece, Coriolanus.

Again I sat at the back and made a sketch. This time in biro:

St Giles Cathedral, Heriot-Watt orchestra, 17th February 2013. biro on paper

Sketching & Song in St Giles Cathedral, Heriot-Watt Choir, Sunday 10th Feb 2013

A post that doesn't fit with my normal themes - no landscape, no nature, no birds...

St Giles Cathedral, Heriot-Watt choir and chamber choir, 10th February 2013. pencil on paper

... but music...

Last night the choir and chamber choir of Heriot-Watt University performed in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Every Sunday a 6-7pm St Giles' at Six free concert takes place there, anyone can go along.

I really look forward to the two Heriot-Watt concerts there each year - one the choir, one the orchestra. It's a treat to spend a whole hour in such special surroundings, sitting looking and listening as music echoes in and out and around the dark-stone arches and columns.
 

This time I sat at the very back so I could sketch without disturbing anyone, but I had to stop often to listen fully to the music - especially a beautiful spine-tingling solo sung by a member of the chamber choir.

Heriot-Watt concerts are really really worth attending (not just because Jennifer performs in them.) Keep an eye on what's coming up on the Heriot-Watt website or email Steve King, conductor and Director of Music, to be added to their music mailing list - s.king@hw.ac.uk.

What this blog will be - Scotland, landscape, art, nature, birds

Hello, I'm Leo du Feu. I'm a Scottish artist, a painter of landscape and nature. I live and work in Linlithgow, near Edinburgh, and exhibit in galleries around Scotland and the UK. You can see my work on my website - www.leodufeu.co.uk

I anticipate using this blog to show what I'm working on in my art and also as an encouragement to me to write - I find writing brings a similar satisfaction to sketching and painting. Birds are also a passion and it'll be good to be able to post some of my birding experiences here. 

My interests in art and environment come together in an ongoing project to explore Scotland by rail. I've been getting to know countryside and towns along various lines, sketching as I go. The project has been possible thanks to the support of ScotRail for the past four years. I intend to post accounts of my railway explorations on this blog, detailing walks, sites of interest, flora and fauna to be seen, etc.

I hope that'll do for an introduction, now here's one quick encounter with a bullfinch: 

male bullfinch, 23.12.09

In the latest edition of RSPB's Birds magazine David Lindo writes in his 'Urban Birdwatcher' (http://urbanitybirder.blogspot.com/) article about the decline of the bullfinch. (Since their 1950s-1970s peak the UK population of these beautiful chunky birds has severely reduced in number, due probably to changes in farming practice and woodland management.)

Anyway, David talks about the song of the bullfinch and the fact that most of us aren't even aware it exists. Certainly until I read his article I thought the low plaintive whistle was the only noise they made. But this morning, walking to my studio, I stopped to look through my binoculars at a flush pink male in a tree across the canal and realised that his black-wedge beak was moving - he was singing! A lovely, gentle, unassuming burble. So I can confirm that yes, bullfinches do indeed sing!