Burns Club Atlanta 100 members. Following club tradition, membership is only open to males. However, non-member male and female guests are frequent and many and are welcome by invitation. Monthly meetings in the Atlanta Burns Cottage feature readings from Burns’ works and various lectures given by visiting scholars, authorities and members. Previous lecturers include Atlanta author Margaret Mitchell and Scottish entertainer and goodwill ambassador, Sir Henry Lauder. Monthly meetings are noted for relaxed companionship and spirited, yet informal, discussion. Every meeting concludes with the traditional Scottish farewell observance of “circling up” and singing “Auld Lang Syne.” The Burns Club of Atlanta retains the
Avison Ensemble a collection of 18th-century music at the back of a cupboard which was found to be a number of concertos by the long-neglected Avison. Avison wrote more than eighty concertos, which drew the great musicians of the day to perform in Newcastle. He worked with figures such as the astronomer William Herschel who was leader of Avison's orchestra, the composer William Shield (his pupil from Whickham and to whom is owed the memory of Auld Lang Syne), the Newcastle glass enameller Ralph Beilby who was a bass player in Avison's orchestra, and the English wood engraver Thomas Bewick, who as