SHUNA SCOTT SENDALL: RIVETING!

IESIS (Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland) and Scottish Opera share one thing in common: a building in the city centre of Glasgow.  This large Victorian building was formerly built for the Institution but nowadays is the home of Scottish Opera who use its large and varied rooms for rehearsals and administration.

In a large hall upstairs there is a fine stained glass window which is in need of some conservation work.  Its centrepiece features the Lusitania, a Clyde built ship whose life tragically ended when she was torpedoed off the south coast of Ireland in 1916 with the loss of many passengers.

A fund-raising afternoon tea was held on Saturday where guests enjoyed 2 short talks about shipbuilding and the Lusitania in particular. While the assemble groups of engineers and interested parties (historians, writers) were riveted (sorry about the pun...) by the slides of great ships on the Clyde, the group were no less riveted in their seats by the quite awesome featured guest offered up by Scottish Opera .... this gal below:

This young lassie is Shuna Scott Sendall and is a soprano, originally from Ayrshire. And Wow!  What a voice!  She gave us a recital of some of her opera favourites followed by Gershwin and the Erisday Love Lilt, a favourite Gaelic air of both Iain and I and of the assembled group.  She was accompanied by Derek Clark, Head of Music for Scottish Opera - and yes, he was quite wonderful too!  Everyone left the hall at the end of the afternoon quite uplifted!

There's masses of material on the internet about here and her website is here.    In a review on her website Robert Thicknesse described her voice as “a great big sock of a voice but uses it subtly and brilliantly....”  Exactly!