Music CLASSICAL
Sunday 9
Glasgow FREE Kelvingrove Sunday Organ Recitals Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Argyle Street, 276 9599. 3–3.45pm. Sunday promenade concerts with different organists.
Edinburgh Raymond Gubbay presents: Johann Strauss Gala Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 228 1155. 3pm. £17.50–£30 (limited concessions available). See Thu 6. St Giles’ at Six St Giles’ Cathedral, Royal Mile, 226 0673. 6pm. Retiring collection. Vocal recital group Quernstane create a portrait of Scotland in words and music as seen through the eyes of an 18th-century traveller. Roger Lang reads extracts from letters and journals alongside traditional songs and classical music of the period. Livingston Scotland Meets Vienna Howden Park Centre, Howden, 01506 777666. 6.30pm. £6. Young musicians from West Lothian Schools take to the stage with an exciting programme of music from Scotland and Vienna, featuring everything from pipes to polkas.
Tuesday 11 Edinburgh Sax Ecosse: Emerging Artists Series Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 228 1155. 2.30pm. £2 (students and children free). The saxophone quartet performs original works alongside pieces that have been specially arranged for this unusual quartet of varying sizes and types of sax. Free tea and coffee and chance to meet the artists afterwards.
Thursday 13
Glasgow Westbourne Music Merchants House, 7 West George Street, 649 5347. 12.45pm. £7 (£3/£6). The vibrant young Idomeneo Quartet visit Westbourne as part of their coveted Tunnell Trust tour, which they won in 2009. Haydn and Shostakovich are the composers of the day, with the Quartet No 2 Op 50 by Haydn and the Symphony No 3 by Shostakovich . FREE Lucy Russell and John Butt Glasgow University Concert Hall, University Avenue, 330 4092. 1.10–2pm. Sonatas for violin and harpsichord including the No 4 in C Minor and the No 6 in G Major by JS Bach.
Edinburgh ✽✽ Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Ticciati’s Schumann The Queen’s
Hall, 87–89 Clerk Street, 668 2019. 7.30pm. £9–£27 (concessions available). Tenor John Mark Ainsley joins the SCO under conductor Robin Ticciati for the Nocturne by Benjamin Britten, a cycle of musical ‘night poems’ that is framed with works by two Romantic contemporaries: Berlioz’ Beatrice et Benedict Overture and Schumann’s Symphony No 4 in its original 1841 version.
Friday 14
Glasgow ✽✽ Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Ticciati’s Schumann City Halls,
Candleriggs, 353 8000. 7.30pm. £11.50–£25 (concessions available). See Thu 13.
Got an opinion? You can now Comment on all our articles at list .co.uk 76 THE LIST 6–20 Jan 2011
EDINBURGH COMPOSERS FOCUS CASCADES Artisan Piano Trio, St Andrews and St George’s Church, Edinburgh, Tue 18 Jan
Bringing an exciting new dimension to Scottish chamber music, the Artisan Piano Trio are young, imaginative and ambitious. Formed by cellist Clea Friend, with SCO violinist Aisling O’Dea and much in demand freelance pianist Simon Smith, they are now midway through their first season of concerts – Cascades – since getting together a year and a half ago. ‘Aisling and I were already good friends,’ explains Friend, ‘and we desperately wanted to play in a piano trio. I came across Simon when I was organising a surprise concert for the 60th birthday of composer Nigel Osborne and thought “that’s the man” and, fortunately, Simon was game.’
Cascades, as the title implies, has a number of objectives, each of them cascading from the main
aim of playing music scored for piano trio. ‘The idea started as wanting to promote composers who are working in Edinburgh at the moment,’ says Friend, ‘and then we started to look back to people who had composed here in the past. We also wanted to play Brahms, so Hans Gal, who taught in Edinburgh in the 1940s and was dotty about Brahms, was an obvious choice.’ Likewise, Kenneth Leighton and Nigel Osborne joined the roster of composers and in the next cascade, Artisan embraced current students of composition. Finally, the students take what they are learning to pupils in local schools. Each of the five concerts in the series includes a
piece by Brahms, with his horn and clarinet trios also part of the mix. The performances are at 6pm and only an hour in length, so ideal for after work. ‘We’ve had a fantastic response,’ says Friend, ‘and we’d love to take Cascades to different cities.’ With New York already on the wish-list, as Friend says, ‘We’ll think big and then see how far we can get.’ (Carol Main)
Edinburgh Ian Tomlin Academy of Music Concert Canongate Kirk, 153 Canongate, 556 3515. 7.30pm. £tbc. Edinburgh Napier University’s Opera Ensemble performs Venus and Adonis by the English baroque composer John Blow.
Saturday 15
Glasgow BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Celtic Connections City Halls, Candleriggs, 353 8000. 7.30pm. £18.50. The orchestra provides the big sonic guns backing a trio of Scottish folk acts – The Alison Brown Quartet, Michael Marra and new Irish traditional band Frankie Gavin & De Dannan. Part of Celtic Connections. Edinburgh Orpheon Consort’s Baryton Trio St Cecilia’s Hall, Niddry Street, 668 2019. 7.45pm. £16 (OAPs £13; students and jobseekers £5). The Viennese trio present Soirée chez les Esterházy, a selection of pieces by Haydn, Lidl and others on viola da gamba, viola and cello using instruments from the Vázquez collection. They recreate an evening such as would have been enjoyed by the court of the Austro-Hungarian Prince and Princess of Esterházy in the late 18th century.
St Andrews Gaita: Days of the Decameron All Saints Church, North Castle Street, www.gaita.co.uk. 7.30pm. By donation. Music from medieval Italy from Gaita inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron in which ten young nobles escape plague- ridden Florence for a villa in the hills and spend ten days frolicking and telling stories.
Sunday 16
Glasgow FREE Kelvingrove Sunday Organ Recitals Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Argyle Street, 276 9599. 3–3.45pm. See Sun 9. Edinburgh St Giles’ at Six St Giles’ Cathedral, Royal Mile, 226 0673. 6pm. Retiring collection. The Leader Ensemble performs Mendelssohn’s Octet Op 20, written when the prodigious composer was but 16 years of age, under director Andrew Lees.
Edinburgh Artisan Trio St Andrew’s and St George’s Church, 13 George Street, 225 3847. 6pm. £10 (£5). New young guns on the block piano trio continue their series of concerts setting Brahms’ trios alongside works by young unknown composers and composition students, along with overlooked pieces by well- known musicians. Brahms’ Horn Trio in E flat Major Op 40 is performed tonight along with the Piano Trio in E Major Op 18 by Hans Gál, who fled Hitler’s persecution in the 1930s and came to reside in Edinburgh, where he continued to live (and compose) for the rest of his life.
Wednesday 19 Glasgow Vocal Recital: Lorna Anderson Pollok House Art Society, Pollok Country Park, 2060 Pollokshaws Road, 427 5600. 7.30pm. £15 (students £5). Pollok House Arts Society presents soprano Lorna Anderson, who has performed with some of Europe’s major orchestras. Here she is joined by pianist
Malcolm Martineau for works by Schumann, Poulenc and Gershwin. Thursday 20
Glasgow Karine Polwart and Kim Edgar Glasgow University Concert Hall, University Avenue, 330 4092. 1.10–2pm. £tbc. The singer performs some of the nation’s favourite Burns songs accompanied by pianist Kim Edgar, with readings by Gerry Carruthers and Kirsteen McCue.
✽✽ BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Afternoon
Performance City Halls, Candleriggs, 353 8000. 2pm. £7. Featuring William Sweeney’s 1991 composition St Blane’s Hill, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 24 and Schumann’s exuberant and lyrical Symphony No 1 ‘Spring’, with young Georgian concert pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and conductor Gerard Korsten.
Edinburgh ✽✽ Hebrides Ensemble St George’s West Church, 58
Shandwick Place, 668 2019. 6pm. £10 (students/under 25s £6). Two rush-hour concerts featuring pieces by Mozart contrasted with modern compositions by MacMillan and Brett Dean. Australian composer and violinist Brett Dean’s contemporary work Epitaphs for String Quartet takes its place alongside Mozart’s String Quartet No 2 in C Minor. FREE Live Music Now: Hoot National Gallery of Scotland, The Mound, 624 6200. 6pm. The flute and harp duo performs pieces by contemporary Dutch composer Louis Andriessen alongside works by Donizetti, Delius and Debussy.