PhD Student, Sarah Rimkus, has a new work to be performed as part of the Gaelic Mass at St Andrews Cathedral, King Street, on Saturday 24th June.
Over a millennium ago in 566 AD, the Diocese of Aberdeen was founded by Saint Moluag, an Irish bishop of the First Order of Celtic Saints. The icon of St Moluag still sits today in the Sacrament House at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, where this Celtic heritage will be celebrated with a Gaelic Eucharist to be performed on St Moluag’s feast day of Saturday 24 June. The Gaelic Society of the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney are celebrating this service for the third year, and it has the distinction of being one of the few major Gaelic language events in the Northeast.
A major component of the service will be a new musical setting of the mass, the St Andrews Mass composed specifically for the occasion by composer Sarah Rimkus, a PhD student in composition in the Music Department. The St Andrews Mass features two choirs: a full choir which sings the mass text in the traditional Latin, and a semichorus of soloists which sing in Gaelic, aiming to bring together these diverse segments of Aberdeen and Scotland’s religious and musical heritage in one unique composition.
The music will be performed by the Cathedral Choir and Choral Scholars under the direction of music director Professor Andrew Morrisson, alongside soloists Ross Cumming, Sam Paul, Sarah LeBrocq, and Kathleen Cronie. Ross is a second year music student who recently won the Ogston Performance Prize, and Kathleen is also a department PhD student in musicology and fluent Gaelic speaker. Sam and Sarah perform regularly with the University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir and other ensembles.
The singers of St Andrew’s Cathedral regularly premiere new works particularly by Aberdeen composers, including Professor Paul Mealor’s Seabury Mass, commissioned by the Cathedral in 2014. A number of music department students sing regularly in the Cathedral Choir and Choral Scholars.
The Gaelic Mass will be performed at St Andrew’s Cathedral on King Street at 3:30 pm on Saturday, 24 June.