[Diocese of Edinburgh] St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August will become a partner in the Edinburgh Schools Singing Programme. It will provide weekly, curriculum-based singing lessons to students in state school primary classes, with hundreds of Edinburgh’s children receiving professional-standard vocal lessons throughout the school year.
The Edinburgh effort is part of the National Schools Singing Programme that has the noted composer John Rutter as its patron.
Duncan Ferguson, the cathedral’s director of music, said, “We are delighted to be working with several Edinburgh primary schools to provide weekly singing to children in their school classes, developing a culture of excellence in singing at schools and in the wider community. The educational, social and health benefits of regular choral singing are well known.”
In addition to the school classes, after-school choirs are being formed that will draw together pupils from different schools and backgrounds, offering additional opportunities for practice and performance at an exceptional standard.
The singing programme builds on recent efforts by the cathedral to share its expertise in choral singing. The cathedral has led singing workshops in several primary schools in recent years, and the weekly singing programme ran in one school in 2024–2025.
To enable the expansion and delivery of the full programme, Katrina MacKinnon has been appointed as St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral’s new schools choral director. Born in Canada, MacKinnon holds a master’s in choral conducting from the Liszt Academy in Budapest and is an established singer, conductor, pianist and leader of children’s choirs. Before beginning this new role she said, “I am thrilled to bring the joy of choral singing to primary school children across Edinburgh. I am inspired by the work the National Schools Singing Programme does throughout the U.K. The next generation has discovered the unifying power of choral music.”
The cathedral’s provost, the Very Rev John Conway, said he welcomes this addition to the cathedral’s music programme, which already includes its choristerships for boys and girls aged 9–14, regular children’s singing events in the cathedral and the cathedral youth choir.
He said, “The Edinburgh Schools Singing Programme enables us to take the musical training and excellence that is at the heart of the cathedral’s life out into the wider community of Edinburgh’s schools. We are pleased to make this opportunity available to Edinburgh’s young children to discover the joy of singing together. We look forward to joining many others in hearing the music-making that Katrina enables across our city.”