We would like to thank Alan Wallace for his research and article on ERCU and the Edinburgh Festivals.
This is a shortened version but you can download and read his full text here.

1946

Herrick Bunney

Herrick Bunney was appointed chorus master/conductor of ERCU in September. He held the post until January 1967. He was also Organist and Master of the Music at St Giles’ Cathedral and the Chapel of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Thistle from 1946 to 1996, as well as having a long-standing musical relationship with the University of Edinburgh.
Apart from ERCU’s own concerts and those of the Scottish National Orchestra, for which the choir provided choral services in those days, it fell to him to prepare choir members for Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) engagements. Unless they were singing a work with which they were familiar, that involved missing their customary six months’ break, but the members willingly accepted that for the honour of singing at the festival.

1947

The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama, as it was called then, opened for the first time on 24 August.

1950 -1963

The choir appeared in every festival from 1950 until the association was ended in 1963. Choral performances were not presented exclusively by ERCU during those years but it was certainly the house choir for the EIF.
Dr Bruno Walter conducted ERCU at two festivals: Beethoven's Choral Symphony and Brahms’ Song of Destiny with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York at one, and in 1953 Brahms’ German Requiem with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Twice ERCU sang under Sir Malcolm Sargent with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Haydn’s The Creation and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.
Although ERCU was participating in the EIF, it continued its own concerts during the winter and rehearsals would commence almost immediately after the festival finished.
Some of our concerts are outlined below.

1950

This was ERCU’s first engagement at the EIF when it sang Fauré’s Pavanne and Haydn’s The Seasons under Sir Thomas Beecham.

Later in that festival a male-voice choir was provided when Kathleen Ferrier sang Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody conducted by Fritz Busch.

1952

ERCU sang under Beecham again in Delius’s Appalachia and Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO).

1953

The eminent conductor Dr Bruno Walter wrote to the then ERCU President D H M Jack thanking the members of the choir for a little gift they had presented to him. He said, “I cannot leave Edinburgh without telling you once more how happy I have been made by the excellent performance of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union, and that it gave me the greatest satisfaction to have had again an opportunity to work for this fine choir”. This missive was sent following a performance of Brahms’ German Requiem with Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.

1956

ERCU had the honour of giving the opening concert of the festival when it performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the RPO, conducted once again by Beecham. Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh were present for the occasion. At the close of the concert the President, Mr J D Cochrane, and Mr Bunney were presented to Her Majesty.

1959

The choir performed with Sir Adrian Boult when he conducted A Sea Symphony at Vaughan Williams’ memorial concert.

1961

ERCU again sang at the opening concert when Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder was performed with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. In the same year the choir was conducted by Otto Klemperer in a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Heather Harper and Janet Baker.

1963

This was ERCU’s final appearance at the EIF. It sang Berlioz’s Lelio under Colin Davis (knighted 1980) with the LSO.

1964

Herrick Bunney was awarded Membership of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1964 New Year’s honours list. He was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1996.

Sir Alexander Gibson, principal conductor and artistic director of the Scottish National Orchestra,  outlining his desire for a new chorus specifically for the festival, is quoted as saying, “It is not good enough to extract at random sections from the Glasgow and Edinburgh Choral Unions, Scottish Opera Chorus etc. and call it a Scottish Festival Chorus”.

1990s

For three years from 1994, ERCU gave an hour-long concert in St Giles’ Cathedral in August as part of the St Giles’ at Six series. This would have been loosely connected to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The official stamp of the fringe can be seen on the programme cover for an August 1997 performance at St Cuthbert’s Church featuring Kodály’s Missa Brevis and Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs.

2009

Four ladies of the choir appeared at the EIF in 2009 when they took part in Experimentum Mundi by Giorgio Battistelli at the Traverse Theatre. This is a theatre work where the drama is provided by an ensemble of 16 skilled artisans who fill the house with tapping, clinking and rasping, and their sounds are filled out by a percussionist and four female performers whose lips patter together soundlessly, whispering almost inaudibly. Celia Coulson recalls that this involved reciting over and over again names of members of their families. Each participant received a fee, which was donated to ERCU, and also a bottle of whisky!

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