Gospel Choir

Although both Form VI girls Ailsa Willis and Shanley Lestini are busy rehearsing for Dollar Academy’s production of Oliver!, they have managed to find time to organize the school’s first Gospel choir which will be performing on 19th June in Dollar Parish Church and 25th June in the Marquee during Sports Weekend.

Ailsa, saxophonist, clarinetist and long-time Gospel enthusiast said, “The concept came to Shanley and me one day when she was visiting my house in Dollar, but after a while we dismissed it as just another wild idea. However, the idea came back to us and, after we advertised it, an amazing 65 people signed up for the first rehearsal. The choir’s thinned out now, but about 19 people should still be singing in church and marquee”.

“Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away” are two of the songs which the choir will be performing.

Shanley from Raleigh, North Carolina is this year’s English-Speaking Union scholar at the Academy and has contributed hugely to the cultural life of the school since she arrived in August. Like Ailsa, she is an active church member. At the Literary and Debating Society’s Burns Supper, she won the Fergusson Quaich - for the best performance of the evening – for her strong delivery of the poem “The Rights of Woman”. Shanley, who explains that there is a strong link between the music of the Scottish Highlanders who settled in the American South and Gospel music, said, “The people at Dollar Academy are some of the finest I’ve ever met. Teachers have given up their free time to make this choir a reality and the pupils have put in so many extra hours. They’ve really ‘given it laldie’. In true Gospel style, I can only say: ‘Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for Scotland!’.