- Holy Worship at Glasgow Cathedral, 2nd August 2026
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Date Posted: Sun, 2 Aug 2026
Twenty members of Ayr Choral gathered to sing this morning's Holy Worship at Glasgow Cathedral (St Mungo's).
This was a lovely opportunity to experience singing in a different space cosily gathered, as we were, high up in the organ loft between the Nave and the Quire from where our voices could float angellically down to the congregation below.
Conducted by Andy McTaggart, our music today was the unaccompanied Ubi Caritas (Ola Gjeilo), and with the Cathedral's Director of Music, Andrew Forbes at the organ, Cast Thy Burden and Blessed are the Men both from Mendelssohn's Elijah.
- The Honeypot Children's Charity
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Date Posted: Sat, 25 Jul 2026
Ayr Choral Committee Members Moira and Marion recently attended a garden party held by our new charity partner, The Honeypot Children’s Charity, as they celebrated thirty years as a charity and three years at Dalleagles House, New Cumnock, its Scottish house which allows young carers from South and East Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway and beyond to enjoy residential respite care.
The garden party was a friendly, happy occasion where guests mingled, shared experiences and learned more about the charity’s work in offering residential breaks for children of primary school age.
Moira and Marion are pictured with Lyndsay Anderson (left), Honeypot’s fundraising manager in Scotland. Also pictured is a dormitory, the learning zone and the all-important birthday cake!
Ayr Choral Union is delighted to be supporting The Honeypot Children’s Charity while raising awareness of its work in bringing smiles and happiness to local young carers. You can find out more about Honeypot here https://www.honeypot.org.uk/
For more information, see: www.honeypot.org.uk/
- Town Twinning Celebration
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Date Posted: Sat, 30 May 2026
We were honoured and delighted to be invited to sing on Friday 29th May 2026 at a Civic Reception at the County Buildings in Ayr.
Hosted by Provost Iain Campbell to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Ayr Town Twinning Association's link with Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and our own friendship with the French choir Le Pincerais, a small group of us performed two Scots songs, including one by Burns, and a song in French celebrating the friendship between the two countries.
We were equally delighted to be asked to stay for tea and cakes afterwards!
- National Lottery Funding Success
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Date Posted: Sat, 30 May 2026
We are thrilled to announce we have been awarded a grant of £10,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund to support ACU150 - our year-long anniversary project.
The funding will support us to deliver key parts of ACU150. We will bring together local residents through accessible, participatory music-making increasing connection, confidence and wellbeing.
Care home residents will experience shared musical activity that reduces isolation and supports memory and emotional wellbeing. School pupils and community singers will build confidence and a sense of belonging by working collaboratively towards a shared performance next May with Ayrshire Sings! and working alongside a professional media studio, students from Ayrshire College will gain practical, creative and technical skills through hands-on experience making a short film about Ayr Choral.
The National Lottery Community Fund award means that we can now start detailed planning for these parts of ACU150, laying the foundation for what we hope will be ongoing and lasting community involvement in music in Ayrshire.
- Ayr Choral on Tour 2026
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Date Posted: Sun, 24 May 2026
photo Andrew ForbesSigning off from our 149th Season!
With an hour of beautiful music, wonderful accompanists, a full audience and the leadership of our exuberent director Andy McTaggart, Saturday afternoon at Glasgow Cathedral was thoroughly enjoyable for all of us at Ayr Choral and a fitting end to our 149th year.
We performed a selection of music from recent seasons including our most recent concert, Mendelssohn's Elijah and music from three contemporary composers, Ola Gjeilo, Frank Ticheli and Mack Wilberg. We were lucky enough to have Andrew Forbes and Will Briant as our accompanists and together they also performed Will's beautiful arrangement for organ of extracts from Ravel's Ma Mere L'Oye Suite.
So that's it for another season - we'll be back in August for our 150th! We have lots planned which you can read about elsewhere on the website and we very much hope you'll join us on our adventures.
Until then!
- A magnificent close to our Town Hall Season for 2025-26
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Date Posted: Tue, 31 Mar 2026
What a thrilling evening Sunday 29th March 2026 turned out to be!
'Elijah' was everything we hoped for, and more - the beautiful playing of our friends the Caledonian Consort, the absolute thrill of having such outstanding soloists, Andy's months of hard work with the choir paying off magnificently and the warmth and generosity of our lovely audience, many of whom gave a standing ovation which I know gave more than one choir member a lump in the throat.
A big thanks to our Friends and sponsors for enabling us to perform at this level with such marvellous professionals and to everyone involved in any capacity - there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make such wonderful evenings possible.
This was the official end of our 149th Season and we hope you'll be able to join us when we go on tour to Glasgow Cathedral in May. Saturday 23rd, 2.30pm....see you there!
- Come & Sing Belshazzar's Feast, 10th-11th January 2026
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Date Posted: Mon, 12 Jan 2026
We took a flying leap in to 2026 with a 2-day Come & Sing event!
Around 50 choir members and over 30 guests joined forces with The Wordsworth Singers and Newmilns and Galston Brass Band for a Come & Sing of William Walton’s thrilling (and challenging!) Belshazzar’s Feast.
After ‘Welcome’ cakes and a vocal warm-up at Castlehill Parish Church, Andy McTaggart & Jenna Martin, with pianistic support from Duncan Williams and Andrew Forbes, rehearsed the choir in sections on Saturday morning, allowing us to get most of the right notes in the right places. The excellent Ayr Choral Home Bakers (rated 5* by one of our guests) kept us fuelled throughout the day and after lunch the whole choir came together for the afternoon’s rehearsal with Andy. We put in another hour and a half of hard work and by the end of the day we were starting to sound respectable!
On Sunday afternoon we reconvened, this time in Ayr’s beautiful town hall where we were joined by Newmilns and Galston Brass Band and both Duncan Williams and John Zhang on keyboards to try and put the whole piece together. The icing on the cake arrived in the form of our tremendous soloist, Phill Gault, who was a very last-minute stand-in – we’re so glad he was able to make it.
At 6pm in front of a much larger than expected and highly enthusiastic audience of friends and family we performed to the best of our ability and with a huge amount of enjoyment. With 2 keyboards, 2 brass bands, over 100 singers and the Wordsworth Singers performing the semi-chorus, the sound was terrific and if not all of the right notes were in quite all of the right places, the smiles on all the faces when we made it to the end really were in the right places. This was an absolute blast. We all learned a lot - both from Andy and Jenna and each other, made new friends, ate a lot of cake and went home feeling we’d experienced something truly….remarkable.
We were absolutely delighted to be joined by so many guest singers for the weekend, not to mention Duncan Williams, Andrew Forbes, John Zhang, The Wordsworth Singers, Newmilns & Galston Brass Band and Phill Gault. Huge thanks to everyone who got involved and to all of the choir members who volunteered to help out to make the weekend go with a swing – it certainly couldn’t have been done without you.
