PEEBLES Orchestra has won National Lottery funding to support a Come and Sing! Mozart Requiem event at the Creative Peebles Festival.

Taking place at Peebles Burgh Hall on Sunday, September 1, the event will welcome singers of all skill levels.
Participants will come together and experience one of Mozart's most magnificent pieces of classical music.

The scratch choir will spend the afternoon rehearsing the chorus sections of the Requiem with a professional conductor alongside Peebles Orchestra, and will be joined by soloists for an evening performance. 

Edinburgh-based conductor Robert Dick, who has a long-established relationship with Peebles Orchestra, will lead the day and guide the singers through the work.

The emphasis will be on having fun, making music together and enjoying the opportunity to explore the wonders of Mozart’s masterpiece.

After an intensive afternoon of rehearsals, participants can share a light buffet meal with members of Peebles Orchestra before gathering once more to present their work in a public performance.

Mozart’s Requiem in D minor is a piece that is shrouded in myth and mystery, due to the composer’s death occurring before it could be finished.

Because of their financial worries, his widow Constanze was anxious that she would lose control over the money earned from it if it was known that Mozart had died before he could complete it.

She quickly arranged for some other composers to secretly take on the task of completing the unfinished later parts and arranged a public performance of the piece, so that she could receive the rest of the fee.

Despite the controversy surrounding the piece, it is still widely regarded as one of the composer's best.

And Peebles Orchestra is "thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity for people in the local community to take part in it."

Tickets are on sale now through the Eastgate Theatre website www.eastgatearts.com