Edinburgh carer didn't want her gran to miss out on Christmas music this year

Alex Stewart, an Edinburgh-based support worker and musician, decided when it looked inevitable there would be no live carol singing visits to care homes this Christmas, including the Highland facility where her gran Marion is a resident, that she needed to do something about it.

Alex (on trombone) with all girl jazz band The Red Hot Rhythm Makers. Alex and two of her band mates feature for the Christmas Concert

Last month Alex put out an appeal to her musician friends and band mates to send in clips of them performing carols and Christmas songs which could be made available to care homes across the country to play on their TVs, on computers and in their lounges.

The result, is a one-hour long concert in three bite-sized ‘sets’, available on YouTube featuring well known and lesser known songs and carols, with performing choirs, vocal groups, soloists, and musicians in an extravaganza of festive music.

Alex would really like her Christmas concert to be seen across the care home network and in hospital wards, in fact anywhere where there might customarily have been a visit by carol singers, a choir or a band, but because of Covid-19 restrictions such visits are impossible.

She said: “All musicians have been through the mill with Covid, in many cases being denied a living, and frustrated by not being able to do what we love. And my Gran brought it home to me that for so many people, particularly those in residential care or in hospital, they would not be allowed that annual visit to bring Christmas cheer into their lives.

“So, I hope that the fun that I’ve had, and that of my fellow musicians, in putting this concert together can help to spread a little happiness this Christmas.”

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