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The choir numbers grew steadily from an initial membership of 70 to a peak of 160 in 1963. It may be that the choir was too big to be a cohesive body because domestic politics intervened so that groups of
people drifted away and the numbers declined steadily to a low point of 28 in 1974. In 1969, Mr. Reith was forced to step down for health reasons and Mr. Marnoch Johnston, deputy conductor and past conductor of the
Training Choir (as the Juvenile Choir had become known) took over as conductor with Mr. Fred Robertson as accompanist. During this period, the choir competed successfully in several singing festivals and appeared on
television, one programme being "McCue's Music": when the choir celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1981, Bill McCue appeared as guest artist. In 1974, Mr. Marnoch Johnston also stepped down due to pressure of
work and the conductorship was taken over by Mr. Geoffrey Pearce, who had recently arrived in Aberdeen from Beverly Minster to take up a post at Harlaw Academy.
By now, the choir had shifted venue again and held
its Wednesday night practices in the Hall of the Treasurer, Eddie Anderson's church - Melville, Carden Place. This hall had a rather rickety piano from which Geoffrey Pearce used to conduct. On one occasion it brought
the rehearsal to an untimely halt when the front panel came loose to give the conductor one heavy blow on the shins. The choir was said to be more amused than concerned. Not only had the practice venue altered; so had
the regular watering hole. The conductor's preference for draught Guinness meant that the Marcliffe Hotel in Queen's Terrace now suffered an influx of a dozen or so thirsty choristers at a quarter to ten. Apparently
they were never too keen to leave, either, having built up a good rapport with the barmaid.
By the mid 1970s the attitude to entertainment had changed from that of the mid 1950s. Cinemas had long since
become bingo halls, television with 3 channels in colour was commonplace, and radio stations had proliferated. It was less common for people to go out to look for entertainment because so much could be obtained
without leaving home, and the art of making one's own entertainment was all but dead. This probably explains the lower numbers in the choir. Despite, or possibly because of, changing circumstances, Mr.
Pearce felt that one concert a year was not enough and so the choir started to give three concerts per year: a St. Cecilia's Concert and a Christmas carol concert was added to the Spring Recital, and the former
was repeated at a second venue outwith Aberdeen usually at St. Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh. These visits were sometimes the cause of some confusion such as the time when a stranger joined a rehearsal. The
conductor assumed he was a friend of one of the members; they in turn assumed he was known to the conductor. Subsequent investigations found that nobody knew who he was but that, in view of his satisfactory
contribution to the rehearsal, somebody should have recruited him.
At this time, the repertoire was also broadened so that, in addition to the customary part songs, masses by Haydn and Mozart, Schubert and
Dvorak, were performed, as were excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and larger choral works such as "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast". In October 1976 the choir took part in the St. Andrew's Cathedral
bi-centennial celebrations, performing a concert which included Vivaldi's "Gloria" and Handel's "Solomon". By this time the schools in Aberdeen were providing choral and instrumental
instruction within their curricula and this, plus an unwillingness of parents to send their children out to practices on winter evenings, meant that, in 1979, the junior choirs were disbanded. The senior
choir's numbers had stabilised around the low thirties.
In 1984, after the choir took part in the BBC "Songs of Praise" from St. Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen, Mr. Pearce left to return to his
native Yorkshire, becoming organist of Selby Abbey, and the Honorary President, Mr. Donald Hawksworth, then recently retired Regional Music Advisor and an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music,
conducted the choir for a year before Mr. Leslie Innes, newly appointed as Head of Music at Robert Gordon's College, took over in 1985. He decided that his music classroom in the college would be most suitable for
practices and the choir has met there every Wednesday of the season since then. |
