information pack 2016 -...

INFORMATION PACK 2016

Press Pack Jan 2016.indd 1 07/01/2016 15:56:19

”

AS THE UK’S LEADING PROFESSIONAL STRING ORCHESTRA, SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE...

• gives over 50 concerts a year• appears regularly at UK festivals including the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival and the

Aldeburgh Festival• presents an annual series at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall• performs internationally (recent engagements include concerts in China, Taiwan, Brazil, the USA and

countries across Europe including Austria, Belgium, Turkey, Romania and Sweden)• presents at least one cross-artform project per year, with recent examples including a

collaboration with visual artist Toby Paterson in a once-derelict 20th-century landmark (2014) and a collaboration with dynamic Swedish dance company Andersson Dance (2015)

• promotes its own concert series throughout Scotland, from major cities, to the Highlands and Islands, to remote villages

• devises and delivers award-winning Creative Learning projects through the City Residency programme, delivering events such as cross-artform collaborations, tea dances, live soundtracks to cinema screenings, late night sessions, ceilidhs, chamber music performances, student coaching and fl ash mobs

• regularly collaborates with high profi le soloists such as Alison Balsom, Nicola Benedetti, Toby Spence and Patricia Kopatchinskaja

• commissions new music from composers such as James MacMillan, Luke Bedford, Sally Beamish, Martin Suckling, Thea Musgrave, Anna Meredith and Sir John Tavener

• has a relationship with highly respected label Linn Records, with the second of a three-disc series, featuring music by Debussy and Takemitsu, out in May 2016

• appears on best-selling EMI Classics CDs Italian Concertos and Seraph• is one of Creative Scotland’s Regularly Funded Organisations

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

”

played with tremendous enthusiasm and their usual pinpoint precisionThe Guardian

a clear, pure and ethereally beautiful performanceShanghai Morning Post

The Scottish Ensemble is so fi nely calibrated, so organically one mind… Every synapse attuned to each other, the Ensemble’s performance of this piece was simply devastating. Concertmaster and Director Jonathan Morton’s exquisitely sensitive violin solos channelled Shostakovich from the grave.Todays Zaman, Istanbul

this is one set of musicians you really need to see live to fully appreciateThe Scotsman

It’s years now since Jonathan Morton outlined to me his philosophy in a mission statement for the group: “Re-defi ning the string orchestra”. And since then that he has not wavered in that determination, whether in probing the potential of extant works, or in his innovative commissions...The Herald

...if there’s a different way of doing things, the Scottish Ensemble will fi nd itThe Scotsman


AVAILABLE FOR INTERNATIONAL TOURING

Goldberg Variations: 11 musicians and 5 dancers are choreographed together in a contemporary reworking of J.S.Bach’s iconic masterpiece

20th-Century Perspectives: City Spaces & Strings: an immersive cross-artform collaboration connecting 20th-century music, architecture and art

Anna Meredith’s Four Seasons: the classical-electronic composer transforms the Baroque masterpieces into one immersive audio-visual experience

Seavaigers: Scottish classical meets Scottish folk in a programme including a double concerto for fi ddle and harp by Sally Beamish

Gabriela Montero plays Mozart: the Venezuelan piano virtuoso brings new life to European and South American pieces with her expert improvisation and fl air

Nicola Benedetti plays The Four Seasons: the in-demand young Scottish violinist and classical music ambassador performs Vivaldi’s much-loved work

OUR PROJECTS

20TH-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES: CITY SPACES & STRINGSIn September 2014, Scottish Ensemble joined forces with visual artist Toby Paterson to present an ambitious cross-artform collaboration connecting 20th-century music and architecture with art. Performed in Glasgow Modernist landmark the Anderston Centre, audiences were invited to explore the previously derelict space, guided by the new work Paterson had made specifi cally for this project, alongside three short sets of music by Scottish Ensemble. This format could be reprised in a number of different types of space.

SAMPLE PROGRAMME

Tuur Insula Deserta Prokofi ev InquietoSculthorpe Jabiru DreamingXenakis Analogique A + B Stravinsky Trois PiecesBritten Funeral MarchReich Violin PhaseNordgren Con MotoWebern In Zarter BewegungGlass EchorusGorecki Quasi una FantasiaElgar SospiriProkofi ev PoeticoAdams A Final Shaking

””Utterly enthralling, this is what music is all about.

Who needs concert halls?The Scotsman


OUR PROJECTS (CONT.)

WORLD PREMIERE: SWEDEN, SEP 2015 | UK TOUR: NOV 2015 | SWEDISH TOUR: JAN-FEB 2016

Published in 1741 as an aria and set of 30 variations for harpsichord, Goldberg Variations remains today one of the most well-known and most celebrated pieces ever written. It’s also one of the most interpreted: From theories that its structure deliberately mirrors the ascent of the nine spheres of Ptolemaic cosmology, to the claim that the whole thing is a cleverly coded rebuke to a critic who had snubbed the composer.

This collaboration, conceived in 2014 between Artistic Directors Jonathan Morton (Scottish Ensemble) and Örjan Andersson (Andersson Dance), adds another interpretation. By taking the well-known model of dance-with-live-music accompaniment a step further by choreographing musicians along with the dancers, the audience has the singular experience of musician and dancer performing as one, transforming the notes and our perception of them.

Örjan Andersson’s choreography, typical of his company’s tendency towards bold, physical, non-narrative statements, takes the audience on a journey through the notes of the variations, using the music almost as the script. Playful yet tender, contemporary yet faithful, Andersson opens a door to this masterpiece of the classical canon and invites new listening.

GOLDBERG VARIATIONSternary patterns for insomniaAn ambitious international project integrating music and dance to create a contemporary response to J.S. Bach’s iconic masterpiece

sublime… a generous dance concert that brings the human spirit to lifeSvenska Dagbladet

a revelation on several levels... The Herald

”

pushed way past conventional boundariesBachtrack

[an] astute visual commentary The Guardian“



SEAVAIGERS A new concerto fusing classical and traditional roots

Premiered at major world music festival Celtic Connections, Sally Beamish’s Seavaigers is a dramatic pic-torial work depicting a sea journey across the turbulent waters of Scotland’s coast.

Exceptional traditional musicians Chris Stout and Catriona McKay join Scottish Ensemble for programmes that fuse classical and traditional styles, creating a new, fresh sound-world.

Rounded off with a short post-concert ceilidh (traditional Scottish dancing) for the audience with the full ensemble, this is a cross-genre collaboration to remember.

Bach, Bartok, BeamishBach Concerto for Two Violins in D minorBeamish SeavaigersBartok Romanian DancesStout/McKay Selection of Scottish folk tunesBartok Divertimento

SeavaigersStout/McKay Selection of Scottish folk tunesVivaldi Concerto for Four ViolinsBeamish SeavaigersGorecki Three Pieces in Olden Style Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D minor

NICOLA BENEDETTI PLAYS THE FOUR SEASONS

Scotland’s most loved young violinist and ambassador for classical music, Nicola Benedetti, joins Scottish Ensemble for performances of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Having been praised for her dedication to perfecting a style of playing appropriate to the period in which this music was played in, Benedetti’s Four Seasons are exhilirating and fresh.

SAMPLE PROGRAMMES

The Four Seasons & TchaikovskyTchaikovsky The Seasons (arr. for strings)

Vivaldi The Four Seasons Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence

Four Seasons & French RepetoireDebussy Preludes (arr. for strings)

Vivaldi The Four SeasonsRavel (arr. Barshai) Petite Symphonie

SAMPLE PROGRAMMES


”ANNA MEREDITH’S FOUR SEASONS

GABRIELLA MONTERO PLAYS MOZART

Venezuelan virtuoso Gabriela Montero has received global acclaim for her technically accomplished, emotionally powerful improvisations. In 2016 she will apply these unique skills in Mozart concerti, which will be presented in a programme with contrasting South American music.

SAMPLE PROGRAMME

Mozart meets South America Mozart Piano Concerti No.11 and No.14 (with improvisations)Piazolla Fuga y Misterio Villalobos Bachianas Brasileiras (arr. for strings)Ginastera Concerto for Strings


”It’s the closest I’ve come to experiencing what it might have been like to hear a 19th-century

virtuoso in recital, when improvisation was as much part of classical as it is in jazz todayThe Guardian

Premiering at Spitalfi elds Festival 2016 in London, this major Scottish Ensemble commission from Anna Meredith recontextualises Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with new audio and visual material to match the energetic, physical, visceral and powerful playing style of Scottish Ensemble.

Meredith’s music is equally at home in both popular and classical worlds. In this commission, her writing intertwines with the original Vivaldi, using cadenzas and electronics to transform the usually distinct four Vivaldi concerti into one continuous musical experience. Audiences will be wrapped in an immersive audio-visual world; a blacked-out space will be transformed into a cocoon of music and projection.

““inarguably one of the most visible faces in new classical musicThe Herald on Anna Meredith

Meredith’s works have been performed by many leading orchestras and ensembles, everywhere from the Last Night of the Proms to fl ash mob performances in the M6 Services.

A year in an hour...


““

Scottish Ensemble (SE) is a group of 12 outstanding musicians who champion music written for strings, crossing genres, styles, periods, and art forms to make new connections.

You might fi nd them playing in a prestigious concert hall, a shopping centre, your local pub or an international music festival; by performing in as many different places as possible, they aim to reach as many different people as possible, letting them experience and enjoy classical music in a way that is relevant to them. Linking each and every event is a commitment to live performance of the absolute highest quality.

Founded in 1969 and based in Glasgow, Scottish Ensemble is the UK’s leading professional string orchestra. Performing together under Artistic Director Jonathan Morton, they also play standing up, allowing the individual players bring an energetic and passionate dynamic to every performance - both in the concert hall and in SE’s comprehensive programme of education and outreach activities.

SE is also committed to putting on innovative cross-artform events, with recent examples including a collaboration with visual artist Toby Paterson (2014) inspired by 20th-century architecture and music, and a collaboration with dynamic Swedish dance company Andersson Dance (2015) in which musicians were choreographed alongside dancers.

SE’s fi rst-class reputation attracts collaborations with world-class soloists including trumpeter Alison Balsom; tenor Toby Spence; violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja; cellist Pieter Wispelwey and violist Lawrence Power. SE also welcomes collaborations with musicians from different traditions and artists from different fi elds, performing alongside Scottish folk musicians Catriona McKay, Chris Stout, and Aly Bain; DJ Alex Smoke; Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and American bassist Edgar Meyer.

Its education and outreach work was developed further in 2012 with the launch of the City Residency programme, aiming to engage communities around major Scottish Ensemble touring venues with music of the highest quality, in ways relevant to them. The bespoke four-day residencies have included: late-night events, ‘pop-up’ performances, masterclasses, coaching sessions, free community performances, collaborative cross-genre projects, and participatory events including tea dances and ceilidhs.

Committed to developing the string repertoire, SE seeks out unusual pieces, and has commissioned a rich catalogue of new works from some of the brightest voices working in music today. In recent years, these have included composers such as Sir John Tavener, James MacMillan, Sally Beamish, Martin Suckling, John Woolrich, Craig Armstrong, Luke Bedford and Thea Musgrave.

Alongside performances across Scotland, SE presents an annual series of concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall and has appeared at BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International, Aldeburgh and St Magnus Festivals. Recent invitations to tour abroad have resulted in engagements in Turkey, Taiwan, China, the USA, Brazil and throughout Europe. SE’s extensive recording catalogue includes EMI Classics’ top-selling CD of 2010: Italian Concertos with Alison Balsom.

ABOUT SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE

[Scottish Ensemble] were sensational in the best performance I have ever heard them deliver, at home or away, in a concert that just about took the roof off the Queen’s Hall, had listeners hollering and hooting, stamping and shouting with elation, and this old coot’s heart thumping so thunderously I thought I might be having a nervous breakdown. All I could do was gasp.The Herald


For more information please contact Fraser Anderson, General ManagerT: +44 141 332 4747 M: +44 7916 275 598

E: [email protected]

www.scottishensemble.co.uk | @scotensemble | facebook.com/scottishensemble


information pack 2016 -...

Documents