IT IS just about three years to the day since Scotland’s first lady of the violin made her last trio tour performance at Eden Court, so it was too much of a temptation to look back in Northings’ archives to remind myself of what I had written on that occasion, and to ponder over what had changed and what had not.

One thing that had scarcely changed was the programme booklet. Let me copy my comments from March 2010: “Five pounds! And that for a publication that was useless on the night as the print contrast made it unreadable in the subdued light of the theatre auditorium. When will the graphic artists who design these commercial souvenirs destined for the bin climb down from their ivory towers and see how ordinary people struggle to cope with the glossy trash that they have produced?” [James – careful, this is getting to be a bit of an obsession. . . – Ed.]

Nicola Benedetti

To be fair, £5 in 2013 is not as outrageous as it was in 2010, but of the 32 pages, 16 were adverts and five were photographs of the very photogenic Nicola Benedetti. At least this time the pages of information were constructive rather than the error-strewn trash of 2010, but still we have to suffer the idiocy of small white type on a black background making it impossible to read David Nice’s helpful notes in a darkened auditorium. Let me lay down a challenge to whoever it is in the Benedetti organisation who is responsible for such things. Next time Nicola and her chums do one of these tours, try printing the important pages in the brochure in black ink on a white background. It may not be trendy, but you will make some friends among the older members of the audience.

This concert in The Silver Violin Tour was much more structured and had a sense of creativity and direction compared to three years back when the programme was little more than a collection of pot boilers. A brief welcome and introduction from Nicola Benedetti was followed by a short film about the composer Erich-Wolfgang Korngold who was to be featured during the first half. It is high time that the 21st century provided more champions for Korngold, a versatile artist who settled in Hollywood after escaping from the Nazi domination of Vienna.

The six fairly short pieces that made up the first half, played by Nicola and her pianist Alexei Grynyuk, had a connecting theme of triumph over adversity, much of it projected in the world of cinema. The main theme by John Williams from the Spielberg film Schindler’s List evoked the heroism of industrialist Oskar Schindler in protecting his Jewish workers from Nazi tyranny.

Then the fiery Tzigane by Maurice Ravel brought out the resilience of the widely despised gypsy peoples. Interestingly this piece was also in Ms Benedetti’s programme three years ago, but this was a very different interpretation. Then it was excessively gutsy with too much attack – now it was more cerebral with the power being in the emotion. I suspect that this can be partly attributed to the change in Nicola’s violin to the “Gabriel” Stradavarius with which she has developed such a strong bond.

Enter Mr Korngold with two extracts from his 1920 opera Die tote Stadt. The hauntingly beautiful ‘Marietta’s Song’ is often considered Korngold’s finest tune, the epitome of late Romantic Viennese music, and the transposition from soprano voice to the strings of the violin only increases the poignancy of the music. This intensity was continued in the waltz-song of the love sick Pierrot in Marietta’s troupe of actors.

Continuing with the connection of triumph over adversity, Nicola and Alexei turned to Shostakovich, who was well known for his difficulties with the terrors of Stalin. After the death of the dictator, Shostakovich felt more liberated in his compositions and produced the suite that accompanied the film The Gadfly. From this the best known extract is the ‘Romance’, delightfully performed following a brief introduction by the violinist.

The last programmed piece of the first half took the music back to the 19th century for Camille Saint-Saëns’ dazzling Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso – a real opportunity to display style and technique if there ever was one! Before we went off for our ice creams, there was one more repeat of three years ago. Nicola’s first appearance on the stage at Eden Court came before she had obtained wide public recognition, but that is not to say that she was not being recognised in the classical music world. Shortly before her success in the 2004 BBC Young Musician competition, a very young Nicola was brought to Inverness by the Scottish Ensemble to partner Clio Gould playing Mozart. The tables are now turned and it is Nicola’s practice to bring onto the stage a young local violinist for a short duet. Tuesday evening will forever be a musical highlight for Shana Grant as she was mentored and partnered by Benedetti in a beautiful rendition of the slow air Leaving Lerwick Harbour.

After the break it was back to the movies for a visual introduction by the trio to Tchaikovsky’s epic Piano Trio in A minor, Op 50, which took up the whole of the second half. It was not a musical genre that appealed to the composer, but once he had been presented with a need for such a work, as a tribute and a memorial to his friend and mentor Nikolay Grigoryevich Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky produced one of the giants and one of the most emotionally draining compositions in the piano trio repertoire.

For this trip on a roller-coaster, Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynyuk were joined by the cellist Leonard Elschenbroich, and together they performed what was really the meat of the whole evening. In the first of two movements pianist Alexei was allowed to dominate as Rubinstein was first and foremost a pianist, but the support from both Nicola and Leonard was substantial. It was in the second movement that the real emotion ruled, with a short theme on the piano based on a Russian folk air followed by eleven virtuosic variations involving the whole trio and a breath-holding coda that built and built to a final diminuendo and silence.

If there is one element over which Nicola Benedetti makes a special effort, it is to communicate with her audience. So it was that she took a few questions from members of the audience before introducing her sister Stephanie, another violinist in the family, and Djordje Gajic, the Professor of Accordion at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to join the trio in a rousing encore, the tango Por una cabeza by Carlos Gardel.

So, overall, a well constructed, well presented, well performed show that targeted a popular audience seeking the reaction “I enjoyed that”. So was I the only one to leave the packed Empire Theatre feeling slightly disappointed? As I said three years ago, it was impossible not to be carried away by the enthusiasm of the audience and it does the soul no harm every so often to be entertained by an evening of pot-boilers. I went home having enjoyed the evening, which was about an hour longer than most classical recitals, but worried about what effect this sort of event has on the broader classical music scene.

I do not begrudge Nicola Benedetti her success – she has worked hard to get where she is – but she is still early in her career and her playing still has a long way to go before it is fully developed. The same can be said for the friends who shared the stage with her. Six (now nine) years ago a photogenic local girl won the most high profile music competition in the UK on the first time the finals were staged in Scotland.

Since then, the marketing muscle of Universal Classics and IMG Management has taken over so that a very good, but still developing, artist can attract Full House notices and an audience paying top dollar that, for the most part, does not bother to support artists who are far more accomplished, both technically and musically, who travel to Inverness to give far superior performances with ticket prices only a fraction of what they were happy to pay here. In the current economic climate, with great pressure on funding for the arts, we must give much more support to live concerts or we are at risk of being left with only mass-market, commercially viable, universally popular music, and that is what this concert was all about.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.

And finally. Let me join in with the comments made by my colleagues and on other pages of this site. Ten years ago Robert Livingston and Kenny Mathieson had the vision and courage to set up Northings as a vehicle for the creative arts. Because of their hard work and inspired leadership it has been a valued and enormous success. Now some bean-counter has decreed that its day has passed and as a consequence creativity must give way to commercialism. Let us hope that classical music maintains its support of unknown, often modern, gems and does not have to go down the road of pre-digested pap.

This is to be my last review for Northings (and indeed, the last of all, for now at least – Ed.). My thanks go to Robert and Kenny for their faith and support, and to all you readers for logging on and keeping in touch through our pages.

© James Munro, 2013

Links

• Nicola Benedetti

IT’S SAFE TO say the parents of Stuart Henderson, who died in a road accident in 2007, can have had no idea what they would set in motion when they suggested to director John Haswell that their son’s youth theatre should create a play in his memory.

FIVE years later, and with Shetland Arts and the National Theatre of Scotland on board, Ignition is the culmination of an islands-wide arts project on an unprecedented scale. Besides the innovative performances taking place in Brae, Bigton and Yell, there has been an extensive six-month programme of activity throughout the community.

Ignition (image NTS)

Children have written songs with Hugh Nankivell, teenagers have sharpened up their parkour skills with Chris Grant, care-home residents have reminisced with choreographer Janice Parker, knitters have created giant woollen artworks with writer Jacqui Clark and designer Becky Minto, and drivers have shared stories with Lowri Evans as she hitchhiked across the islands dressed as the ghostly White Wife of local folklore.

It is from this vast store of material that director Wils Wilson has drawn to piece together the final production. Despite the project’s tragic inspiration, this is no didactic show about road safety. Instead, it is an impressionistic consideration of the motor car’s place in island life. Although some older residents have never learnt to drive and many younger ones think nothing of walking three miles home from the ferry terminal, it is impossible to imagine today’s Shetland economy without motorised transport. Not only is off-shore oil a major industry, but in a sparsely populated region, almost nothing happens without a car.

Ignition is a celebration not of cars in themselves but the things they make possible. Appropriately, most of the show takes place inside moving and stationary vehicles. Everyone’s journey is slightly different, but it will include a choreographed display of free-running and ballroom dancing set to a soundtrack of travel-related interviews played over your car radio. You will give a lift to a hitchhiker who will tell you their story (mine had come from the mainland in search of the home of his forebears) and you will get into someone else’s car for more tales of vehicles loved and lost.

The unusual format, involving long drives and precision parking, inevitably means it’s not as technically slick as a regular NTS show, but all the strands come movingly together when we return to the village hall. It’s laid out as if for a Sunday tea and, as we tuck into coffee and cakes, we join in with the choir singing songs written by children and other local people about the landscape they know and love. “All the journeys we’ve made . . . All the places we’ll go to,” goes one refrain as Lowri Evans reads out the dream destinations we have written down earlier in the evening. The effect is a big-hearted celebration of life as it is lived, a community looking at itself and liking what it sees.

© Francis McLachlan, 2013

Links

• NTS

ANDY Parsons is a familiar face on TV with regular appearances on Mock the Week and other game shows.

DESPITE having seen him on the box for a number of years I was curious to see how he would perform live on stage as I can’t recall ever having watched his live set. Although not full to capacity, there was, never the less, a good turnout for Parsons at the Ironworks on a cold Thursday night. Despite the fact that the music venue is not best suited to stand up I’ve seen some great gigs there over the years and was looking forward to seeing Parsons in the flesh.

Andy Parsons

Walking on stage he appeared relaxed and confident and was quickly at ease with his audience. The first half of his performance was a fairly gentle and relaxed middle of the road set which covered the standard comedian’s topics of incidents in hotels, visits to the doctor and conversations with call centre operators. I had expected him to take more risks as a performer and found his material in the first half a little bland. Despite this he was quick-witted and his sharpness in handling the few heckles that this fairly reserved audience managed was clearly evident.

I was also a little surprised by his frequent and rather unnecessary use of the “F” word which seemed to punctuate every other sentence he used. I don’t think there is any problem with performers using obscenity but it was noticeable in the first half of Parsons’ set just how often he resorted to expletive and that didn’t seem to fit with the gentle material that he was delivering.

This is probably the last review I’ll write for Northings, due to its funding demise, and this led me to recall some of the highs and lows of my years reviewing comedy for the site. A definite low point were the battles I, and other performers, had with early Hootannay audiences who saw stand up as some kind of verbal war between the performer and the crowd. I can remember a mystified Mike Thombs, on meeting a solid barrage of heckling, pleading with the audience, “I’m actually here to do some comedy, if you’ll let me get a word in.”

Another Manchester stand up ended his act with, “Thank you for being the toughest audience of my career,” this, of course, was greeted with rapturous applause. I was there when Phil Kay tried to get the attention of the Hoots crowd back after the interval by dropping his trousers and mooning at them. It didn’t work, we’ve seen plenty of arseholes in Inverness.

I was there when Sarah Millican did her first gig as a professional comedian in Hootananny’s upstairs bar. Before she went on she turned to me and said, “I’ve just given up my day job, you know.” “Bloody hell,” I replied, casually, “You better be funny.” I won’t relate her reply but it contained a number of the “F” words of which Mr Parsons seems so fond.

I was at Inverness Sports Centre when Ed Byrne got so tired of looking at a particularly miserable git in the audience and paid him to leave. I was also at Eden Court when Jerry Sadowitz played a five minute hard core porn video on the screen on stage just because he could and being banned from another theatre would mean he had less travelling to do.

I was also at Eden Court when it just came right for Bill Bailey and he performed the best stand up set I’ve ever seen to an audience so receptive they deserved to enjoy a comedian at the peak of his game. I was there at Hootananny when Davey the Ghost went on stage and got a laugh, although thinking about it for a minute, I may have imagined that.

There is now an audience for stand up in Inverness that didn’t exist five years ago with the number of folk willing to turn out on a bleak Thursday night to watch Andy Parsons bearing testimony to that. What remains unusual in the Highland capital is that there is still no consistent audience for stand up with each TV comedian attracting a crowd of his own devotees who probably wouldn’t come to watch other acts.

Crowds in Inverness are still reluctant to come and see comedians on their way up who have yet to gain TV exposure. This despite the efforts of Bruce Fummey, who continues to offer top class circuit comedians at his Just for Laughs nights on the first Thursday of every month at Hush night club. Hopefully Highland audiences will become more willing to take risks as one of the joys of seeing stand up is watching little known comedians, in small venues, who go on to become major stars just as Ms Millican has done.

Parsons’ performance really began to take off in the second half of the show when he turned to more politically oriented material which seemed far more polished. In this sharp, well-honed and extremely clever material he displayed his real skills as a comedian. There were fewer “F” words and the audience appeared to enjoy his material more having “warmed up” in the first half. I had to leave before the end of his show so if someone jumped on stage and stabbed Parsons’ I missed it. This seems unlikely though, unless it was Boris Johnson, for who Parsons reserved a particularly potent form of vitriol. Parsons’ was entertaining and, at times, very funny even if the set he performed was a little “safe” or conservative. No one in the audience can have gone home disappointed even after Parsons returned to his shed, which, very loosely formed the theme for his night’s set.

These have been Northings comedy reviews. I’ve been John Burns. You’ve been a lovely readership. Thank you and good night.

© John Burns, 2013

Links

• Andy Parsons

AN ANNUAL installation by the students on the Art, Space and Nature masters course at Edinburgh University has now become part of the An Lanntair calendar.

COURSE tutor Donald Urquhart established the Western Isles connection. It is possible this will alternate with course visits to Orkney. The pattern is that a group of students first visits as a field trip. They then have a period to continue their investigations and research.

When they return to the Island, they install a group show, exploring responses to what has struck the individual artists and sparked off further work. The first installation, three years ago, was in the corridor and bar area but the quality of work led to last year’s offer of installing in the main gallery. I felt it was a show brimming with ideas so was not surprised to see the space offered to this year’s students. Sadly it is only on show for a week.

It’s fortunate that Northings is still active, just long enough to draw attention to a body of work that might otherwise hardly be noticed. And I’m glad to be able to sign-off from a happy long-term relationship with this excellent forum, on a positive note. But where will we find its like – a skillfully edited and well presented Journal, fairly presenting comment across all the arts, as they relate to the Highlands and Islands?

This is a body of work brimming with a sense of adventure. Pieces vary from provisional expressions of a developing idea to pieces which seem to me to have already found a satisfying form for the ideas behind them. The range of media is wide but all works do home-in to our small geography. But there is an implicit sense of comparison – our context in a wide world.

Take Stephanie Getta’s Dic | Seanphacail | Sayings. It is a work in three languages. A simple but well-designed pamphlet gathers the proverbs of an area in the Dolomites and those of the Isle of Lewis. The work is the gathering and comparison, diligently researched, quietly presented and likely to be ongoing. A small group of plastic cups for the ear are suspended as an offer to listen to the languages of Gaelic and Ladin.

Tanja Geis represents the luxurient sea-foam which has been such a feature of recent storms. The meeting of ocean and shore is recorded in photography but this becomes two large scale long rectangles, inviting comparison. They are like positive and negative images, richness come from sheer energy. She sets this by a “haleidoscope” where salt crystals turn inside a hand-shaped cylinder carved from a piece of discarded shipyard oak. The timber, from a decommissioned fishing vessel, has been giving a new life. Both pieces are beautiful objects but are also part of an exploration.

Sara Ockland - Walk Away

In contrast, the exploration of possibility seems more to the fore than a finished presentation in the work shown by Sara Ockland. She continued the group’s relationship with the traditional boat society, Falmadair. The whole group sailed the last of the original north Lewis lugsail boats, sgoth Jubilee, during their field trip. Sara was taken back out into the approaches to Stornoway harbour by skipper Jim McWhir. A series of like discs were painted with a fairly wild shade of red to enter the water, but tethered together so all could be recovered. Although they did not present enough surface area to be affected by wind, the drift induced by tidal current and small waves sent them drifting in divergent lines.

For me, this is an idea that could continue to be explored. The discs themselves looked startling on the grey gallery floor and led you to a small, simple image of their distribution on the sea. But it’s surely part of a Masters Degree course that there is room to set an idea in motion. Perhaps some artists work by forming the idea and thinking out its practical representation in advance and others have to try this and try that till it all seems right. It’s interesting too that some artists on this course come from a background in architecture or in landscape architecture and others from fine-art. For some it may be the first time they have exhibited a made work, outside a formal commission.

Luskentyre beach has proved a draw on all the course field-trips. It’s character is caught by Javier Vidal Aguilera, who exhibits 99 small prints. They are derived from photographs of seaweed traces. It reminded me of Helen Douglas’s work, gathered in one of Alec Finlay’s pocketbook series in the sense that it is a subtle, sustained study of a simple but beautiful found thing. But something mysterious happens here, in the translation from digital photograph to monochrome print on semi-transparent paper. The whole series taken on one day (another number 9 in the date) adds a shamanistic element. The observed natural debris has become a mysterious calligraphy.

Sandra Teixera - 32000 Folds

This work naturally chimes with Sandra Teixera’s “32,000 folds”. It is a prayerful commitment – representing 1,000 salmon, in small origami models. These are suspended on monofilament line and allowed to move to any air-currents. They ask more then they tell – perhaps there is a native North American parallel to the Gaelic tradition of the salmon of knowledge. Perhaps there is an implicit comparison with the free-swimming wild fish and its densely-farmed, genetic cousin.

Flavia Salvador has observed what Robert Livingston once called “the zen of passing places” in a Northings blog. You look ahead and show courtesy, guaging your speed so perhaps you might not even need to stop. The idea uses the space offered by the particular gallery to meditate on an observed tradition of passing a waved greeting across the space outside the nearly-meeting cars. One text is carefully painted on one wall and you look twice to see how it corresponds with the answering phrase, opposite. The work is a poem. It is gentle but depends on wit to express the observation.

Flavia Salvador - The Passing Place

A direct quotation catalogues the work of Zhongying Ren: “Man is ruled by land, land is ruled by heaven, heaven is ruled by Tao, and Tao is ruled by nature.” In one sense this work relates to the seafoam wall, round the corner of the L-shaped space. Crumpled metal foil replicates the strange natural phenomena in a contrasting material. It’s like a metaphysical conceit in poetry – where an extravagant or daring metaphor brings you to study one thing by likening it to another. I had to stoop low to see the foil reflected in a floor-level band of uncrushed foil on the wall. Perhaps this is another work where the present visual form is not the final result of a developing idea.

There is a turning point in any L shape and Jonathan Hemelberg probably unwittingly follows his tutor, Donald Urquhart, in carrying a work around that corner. Urquhart’s last show here, really did play music with the opportunities of the space. Drawing has returned, big time, to the art world. This artist draws a simple, alternative map. Significant features – a lighthouse, a broch, are placed in a landscape of swirls that could be contours. Written diary-like comments note a personal reaction to our landscape. But you could argue that any phrase in common use was someone’s personal reaction once. To quote from the lore of a region in the Dolomites:

“Då lå Madònå dei Chèrmin i òrjes doveså ˘spièr.”

“On the day of our Lady of Carmel the barley should start to spike.”

It’s good to know there’s a summer of some kind coming.

© Ian Stephen, 2013

Links

• An Lanntair
• Art Space and Nature Programme
• Ian Stephen

COMBINING dance with digital media is often attempted but rarely succeeds as well as it does in Labyrinth of Love, the work which opened Rambert’s welcome return to Inverness and gave its name to this tour.

A PARTITIONED backdrop of back projection screen hangs behind what can only be described as a bar counter, itself fronted with screens, on which are projected images responding to the sung text.

Labyrinth of Love (photo © Chris Nash)

Kirsty Hopkins, soprano, sings words written by or about women and love spanning the last two and a half millennia. She also moves, and decorously dances, sometimes partnered. It’s a glorious voice, a bravura performance; and yet completely integrated into the whole.

At first the moving backdrop is a little distracting but as the images dim and evolve elementally and poetically – earth, air, fire, water, moon, smoke, cloud, stars – its simple elegance proves its worth. Although the texts include Sappho, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson, the lyric that stands out is composer Daugherty’s own ‘Liz’s Lament’, a regretful monologue for Elizabeth Taylor about her relationship with Richard Burton;“my husband….my ex-husband…I can’t remember which”.

For this, the backdrop shows rocks and pebbles tumbling and falling – and in amongst them, one huge, brilliant-cut diamond. A lovely touch, one amongst many,

Labyrinth is an excellent showcase for the physicality and musicality of the dancers. The choreography, and the company’s delivery of it, throughout this work is as good as anything you’re likely to see this year and enchants everyone within earshot of this reviewer’s seat.

After a short interval, Monolith, by Tim Rushton with music by Latvian composer Peteris Vasks is, however, the outstanding work of the evening. The design is pure, simple and exquisite. The choreography is punishing, full of abrupt transitions from fast to slow, flowing to static, smooth to angular, requiring – and getting – superb technique from the company. This is a world-class piece and a world-class performance and fully justifies Rambert’s claim to be the UK’s premier contemporary dance company.

The final third of the programme affectionately revives the version of Nijinsky’s L’Apres-midi d’un faune originated by Marie Rambert herself in the 1930s and maintained in the repertoire for decades afterwards. The costumes are Bakst’s designs brought to three dimensional life. The lush sweetness of Debussy’s music contrasts with Nijinsky’s succession of hieratic moves and static poses designed to evoke ancient bas-reliefs. How shocking it must have been on its first showing in 1912! Now it has the quaint, engaging charm of a silent movie.

It’s paired with Mark Baldwin’s response to it, made on the company with a commissioned contemporary score by Gavin Higgins and designed by Michael Howells in a style that could be described as “Sgt Pepper’s Stag Night at a Rave”. There is a collective gasp and murmur from the audience as the curtain rises to reveal three huge wasps suspended over the stage. We are, according to the programme, in the Forest of Dean, although many of the energetic moves recall native dances from North America and (perhaps) Baldwin’s native Fiji.

Once again the company draws on its seemingly endless reserves of stamina and skill, as do its excellent musicians.

It’s good to finish dance reviews at Northings with a show, and a company, of such excellence.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Rambert Dance
• Jennie Macfie

“WE sacked Seamus (Fogarty),” quipped Pictish Trail Johnny Lynch when he and James Yorkston emerged together following the interval, “he didn’t sell enough merchandise over the break.”

IT WAS a comment which set the tone for an evening of bantering camaraderie and do-it-themselves minimalism in the typical Fence style, with our three hosts having lugged their own assortment of guitars, samplers and (in Yorkston’s case) an elaborate-looking nyckelharpa onstage and assembled them around their feet.

James Yorkston

Yorkston, Lynch and Fogarty’s styles are all different, but with enough overlap to allow this three-way package tour to work by taking it in turns to be each other’s backing group. Between Yorkston’s rich, pastoral alt.folk style and Fogarty’s similarly earthy balladeering there was most crossover, and the pair employed a trad combination of guitar and voice on songs like the former’s Steady As She Goes (“a song about taking acid with your girlfriend’s sister,” apparently) and Surf Song, it’s lyrics jokily messed around with, or the latter’s John Martyn tribute Song For John.

Lynch’s new album Secret Soundz Vol.2, on the other hand, is a treasure chest of electro-acoustic delights, and his wonderful contributions were more leftfield, including a subdued version of his other band Silver Columns’ song Columns or the dense electronica of Michael Rocket. These were only two of many stand-out moments, including Yorkston’s wistful cover of Erasure’s A Little Respect, the trio’s a cappella harmony on Fogarty’s God Damn You Mountain and Yorkston’s striking closer Queen of Spain, although by the end it might have felt to many as if our appetites for each singer’s music hadn’t been entirely satisfied.

James Yorkston, Pictish Trail and Seamus Fogarty play the Eden Court, Inverness, on Tuesday 19th March and the Universal Hall, Findhorn, on Wednesday 20th March.

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• Fence Records

THE CHAIR of An Talla Solais, Dave Falconer, has been working towards this exhibition for years.

IT CELEBRATES the art of the print, by showcasing work produced by a wide range of artists at two institutions: the Highland Print Studio, in Inverness, and Hot Bed Press, in Manchester. The resulting exhibition is eclectic and enthralling.

Untitled (collograph) by Jan Breckenridge

There are many different printing techniques on display, and linocuts sit next to much more high tech prints, without explanation or apology. The show is therefore not an introduction to the methods of print, although if that is your interest, there are workshop opportunities at the gallery while the exhibition is on.

The work of both studios is blended without making it obvious which artists are from which area. Arguably this means that the exhibition misses the opportunity of allowing comparisons to be made, but the result is pleasingly diverse.

The stand-out print is an extraordinary seascape of the Shiant Islands, which is actually formed through clever use of greyscales on a printout of a traditional Hebridean story as told by Ian Stephen in a collaboration between him and artist Emmanuelle Waeckerlé and printer John McNaught. Another Ian Stephen story forms part of a print of Fair Isle, created in collaboration with Christine Morrison.

John McNaught’s own work is also story-based, with brightly coloured cartoons of footballers with associated bizarre tales. These are works that take substantial time to absorb.

Other pieces are much more immediate. My favourites are Katy Spong’s wildlife prints, of which there are two in this show. Roebuck at the Forest Edge is a beautifully atmospheric dusky image, appropriately hung in the corner of the big room in the gallery, as if about to vanish from sight. Arrival is marvellous image of geese landing, their splashing almost audible and their bright red feet making best use of the limited range of colours in the print.

Presumably because of the inking methods used to produce the prints, the use of colour is often limited and several of the artists make wonderful effects with a narrow palette. I particularly enjoyed Carolyn Murphy’s linocuts; the stark green Fern is an effective study of form, Morlich a dramatic black and white shore scene, and the demonic Scottish Shee captures the essence of ram in a few brilliantly chosen marks.

Brian MacBeath uses a few vibrant colours in his starkly simple, strangely beautiful abstracts, and Jane Frere achieves an explosion of raw emotion in her questioning What’s the colour of betrayal?

A piece I kept returning to was Elisabeth Shepherd’s Four Pansies, apparently the same image printed with four different colour combinations, the result a meditation on petal shape and shade. Another piece of hers, In the Country, is also mesmeric, with its delicate ferns, butterflies and orchids in a composition with surprising depth, while Josephine’s Poppies is a stunning burst of red. These are subjects with a real risk of being merely pretty, transformed into pieces that use colour to achieve affects that are both arresting and contemplative.

Some of the artists do amazing things in black and white. Samuel Horsley’s work features strange creatures with mammalian skulls and four legs, but their wiry hair and weird proportions and postures make them somehow both insect-like and full of feeling. Anne Campbell’s screenprint I never enjoyed anything as much as the sheiling is an evocative piece reaching back in time, the printed images and space giving the sense of both memory and forgetting. Irena Przby captures the essence of tree in Frosty Tree, and of water in Flow, and her apparently simple illustrated books of legends and myths use imagery that seems timeless, making best use of print techniques connecting back to early woodcuts.

The show is a fine demonstration of the diversity of effects that can be achieved by transferring images from one surface to another. The constraints of colouration and of the marks possible on the engraved surface often seem to be transformed into methods of achieving emphasis and style. This is an intriguing exhibition. Anyone interested in the potential of print should make their way to Ullapool to see it.

© Mandy Haggith, 2013

Links

• An Talla Solais

INSPIRED by Scottish and Italian landscapes, Sam Cartman’s first solo exhibition at Kilmorack Gallery represents a significant progression in the artist’s work to date.

THIS IS a show of absolute clarity in the skilled handling of paint, distillation of visual language and command of composition. Characteristically the relationship between elements of nature and human architecture create a sense of immediacy and tension, with linear draughtsmanship and gestural brushwork exquisitely balanced throughout. Moving more deeply into abstraction has arguably strengthened the artist’s composition, and there is new verve and dynamism in this latest body of work, taking Cartman’s practice to a whole new level.

Towards Glenshee

The artist’s acute understanding of the essential crafting of images through line, form, colour and texture is resoundingly evident. Driven by paint handling and with the element of design less consciously visible than in earlier work, formal elements of structural deliberation become fully integrated with the most articulate and subtle handling of paint. Bold planar treatment of oil on board, strong lines and a magnificently controlled palette are tempered by a variation of mark that can only be fully appreciated in viewing the original work. Cartman draws the eye and mind of the viewer into the image with remarkable consistency, a confident rhythm which is sensed and felt from the smallest scale work to the largest in the exhibition.

Towards Glenshee (Oil on board) is a beautiful example of finely tuned pictorial, structural and human elements within the landscape. A pure, bold expanse of aqua sky, undulating interlocking hills and geometric forms are punctuated by singularly decisive marks of russet. Warm accents of colour, typically rust, ochre or flashes of vibrant orange sit in contrast with a predominantly cool, contemplative palette. This restrained use of colour gives Cartman’s work a distinctive edge.

In Towards Glenshee the striking crescent of white feels like a signature and a sense of unexpected depth is created by larger forms in the far left foreground receding into a curvature of seeing and perceiving the landscape. On closer inspection the plane of sky reveals gentle stippling of paint, this together with areas such as a triangle of fluid layers in blue, green and smeared charcoal, encourage consideration of the qualities of the medium from flattened almost industrial treatment to delicate stains. Allowing the white ground to emerge beneath the horizon line creates an impression of luminous, Northern light often glimpsed behind a curtain of sky or dense seemingly immovable cloud. Human dwellings are suggested but largely subsumed in a complex arrangement of abstracted form. It is the feeling of pure blue that immediately draws the viewer and like a great piece of music the underpinning structure of the composition is seamless in its execution.

Usan Diptych

The large scale Usan Diptych is another superb example, an expanse of sky and scattered semi industrial/residential buildings that brings the eye masterfully to the centre of two equally balanced halves. The imprint of palette knife and roller in a geometric cascade create unexpected nuances in the dominant sky; comprised of two blue variations separated by a jagged band of white ground emerging from beneath the painted surface. The loose treatment of the foreground, opaque or stained pigment and animated gestural marks cleverly add to the viewer’s sense of perspective, while the sparing use of eye catching warm colour: ochre, yellow, russet and orange, placed with the utmost precision and instinct, achieve a perfectly balanced composition. In his Single Panel Tryptich Cartman presents a complex arrangement of interlocking man made architectural and semi organic forms testing the structural and compositional boundaries of the image. This exploration of the picture plane, paint quality, density and mark, allows the artist to create a multi-layered response to humankind in the environment.

Temple 5

Temple 5 is a fascinating work in the suggested relationship between human architecture and nature. The jutting apex of the building suggests a stark purity of intent and aspiration in its heightened perspective. The sharply defined vanishing point adds to the sense of human presence in the landscape; the outline of stone walls, tiny darkened window and shaded solidity contrasted with the more ephemeral smears of charcoal and ever present blue/grey sky. Delicate textures of drizzled turpentine and a light touch of ochre path invite closer inspection while sharp geometric accents of purple and linear orange trace the eye’s movement to the horizon line.

Castle Road

Stylistic contrast in works such as Castle Road where drafted, precise lines of architecture and tonal definition meet fluid paint handling and pure abstraction are convincingly balanced in visual counterpoint. This dynamic between design and spontaneous mark is exemplified in the reaction between pigment and board creating a shifting sky of bled ultramarine in Roccasecca. Here the white architectural façade of the building is juxtaposed with liquefied sky. Sharp linear perspective guides the eye into the image but it is colour and paint density that governs our emotional response to the image.

Outpost

Another highlight of the exhibition is Outpost, an image divided by a serpentine line between foreground and mid-ground. To the left of the composition, hard-edged abandoned structures in greyish blue and black contrast with large boulders, stones and viscerally sketched grass in ochre, tinged green, russet and orange. Treatment of the sky is poetically distilled and immediately tactile, stained grey beneath white, with a curvature of thickened paint bringing movement of cloud to the profound stillness and isolation of the scene. Human habitation and its figurative absence in Cartman’s compositions remains poised and enigmatic, an eternal dance between natural and human marks in the landscape. Throughout this latest body of work the artist delivers a sustained and potent exploration of the plastic elements of image making and his chosen subject, creating finely balanced compositions of expansive depth and insight.

© Georgina Coburn, 2013

Links

• Kilmorack Gallery
• Sam Cartman

SITUATED in the plaza of the Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen, a magnificent newly commissioned sculpture by artists Marian Leven and Will Maclean draws its inspiration from ancient standing stones in the landscape and the graceful precision of naval architecture.

Waterlines is an inspired visual statement; a significant cultural marker reflecting the continuity of visual traditions and rich maritime history of the region. It is also a celebration of the collaborative work of two of Scotland’s most respected artists.

Artists Marian Leven and Will Maclean

Multidisciplinary lines of enquiry; aesthetic, archaeological, historical, scientific and architectural are displayed in the exhibition, bringing together contemporary Visual Art; sketchbooks, paintings and box constructions by Leven and Maclean with objects drawn from Aberdeen University museums, collections and archives. The result is a wonderfully fluid dialogue between the Waterlines sculpture, the exhibition and the inner architecture or aspiration of the library as “a luminous landmark for the community”.

Within the library building The Sir Duncan Rice Library Gallery and expansive ground floor entrance hall provide an on-going opportunity to showcase works from the university museums’ collections and for creative collaborative exchange between different disciplines or ways of seeing. The Waterlines sculpture and exhibition powerfully illustrate the ways that contemporary art can inspire deeper examination and rediscovery of our history and ourselves.

Peter Davidson’s poetic response to the sculpture as “a lasting presence”, “seamark and landmark, anchor, metaphor” is extremely apt. The presence of this sculptural diptych, two monumental forms punctuated by a beautifully defined negative space through which the library tower beyond can be viewed, is almost figurative. The Waterlines sculpture integrates traditions of seeing; the human eye and mind perceiving the Northern landscape as land, people and memory and it is fascinating to see the evolution of its design in the visual practice of Leven and Maclean together with original source material in the exhibition.

Waterlines sculpture and library (photo by Kate Sutherland)

Sculpted from Kilkenny blue limestone, Waterlines responds to rain, wind and sunlight with an entire spectrum of tonality and mark; from bleached white grey in frozen winter sun to deep blue, stained by rivets of rain. Its elegant curvature contrasts and compliments the linear asymmetrical designs of the library’s glass facade. The choice of Kilkenny stone echoes beautifully the subtle qualities of Marian Leven’s paintings which in their textural, tactile rendering capture the nuances and intricacy of Northern light.

This shifting perception and human vulnerability is sensed and felt in the paint handling, beautifully balanced by expansive, abstract form. Summer Memory II (Watercolour 2011) is a fine example, harnessing the natural fluidity of the medium with formal compositional/design elements. The pigment feels residual, applied in layers like misty rain and naturally random patterns of mark, while the dominant form to the left is defined by a singular edged stroke of paint. Characteristic of Leven’s work there is ambiguity between seemingly organic marks emerging from the ground of greenish grey and the deliberation of staccato brush marks of vibrant orange.

In larger scale paintings this quality is distilled and transformed from an intimate frame of reference; the fleeting and ephemeral quality of human memory /perception to the timeless and monumental presence of nature. Northern Light (Acrylic On Canvas 2011) is a prime example, the division of the canvas providing both compositional structure in terms of the crafting of the image and a dominant feeling of the sky as both an emotive physical presence and an idea within the work. The delicate, almost plaster-like surface and palette of subtle variations white on white create a contemplative space; a mindscape in direct response to the landscape.

The sense of movement in this work is achieved with incised, drawn and textural marks and minute tonal shifts. An adjacent work Meltwater (Acrylic On Canvas 2011) explores this idea further in textural layers; from the speckled sand-like texture at the top of the composition to the horizontal white bar division of the canvas and stained movement of water with drawn charcoal marks beneath. Each shifting strata has its own texture and rhythm; a microcosm of minutely observed change of matter and consciousness. This awareness of the picture plane in abstraction, skilful handling of the artist’s chosen materials and the ever present expressive human mark, define Leven’s visual language and inform her sculptural collaboration with Maclean.

Will Maclean - The King's Fish (University of Aberdeen Museums Collections)

John Stuart’s Sculpture Stones of Scotland (1856), including an illustration of The Maiden Stone (Chapel of Garioch), is juxtaposed with Leven’s sketchbooks in the exhibition, providing insight into the design process and inspiration behind Waterlines. The spatially divided stone fragments as formal elements of design, like the diptych arrangement of the dogfish in Will Maclean’s large scale etching of Traditional Story: The King’s Fish, are part of a shifting frame of visual perception. Part of the Night of Islands series inspired by Gaelic poetry and prose, The King’s Fish contains many visual frames of reference in its delineation and its internal narrative. This indigenous understanding of visual traditions or language linked to the natural environment is central to the work of both Maclean and Leven in its reverence and insight. It is also part of a wider movement of cultural reappraisal acknowledging a continuum of visual traditions in the North of Scotland from ancient standing stones to the present day.

Revealing that which is hidden and prompting rediscovery of original visual sources, Leven’s contemplation of ancient standing stones in a series of line drawings takes on a luminous quality, with the shaded background defining form. This presence through white space illumination evokes the inherent mystery of the stones and a spirit of enquiry in exploring their potential meanings. The display of the Fairy Green Stone, a Class I Pictish Symbol Stone, found in Perthshire in 1948 and now part of the University museums’ collections, is a cultural marker of knowledge and understanding in its making and design.

Maclean & Leven's Waterlines (photo by Kate Sutherland)

It is also an object representing rituals and meanings that for all our technological advances and “civilization” remain unknown to us. Like Einstein’s statement that “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science” Leven’s drawings highlight the human need for creative enquiry. The artist’s practice, the Waterlines sculpture and the inner architecture of the library building, are all potential meeting points for human aspiration, discovery and knowledge.

The inclusion of a ship’s model, a gift from Marian Leven to Will Maclean, references their personal and creative partnership; the vertical inversion of line and form in this small scale wooden model providing the initial spark of inspiration for a permanent sculpture of two equal and complimentary halves. The fusion of ancient markers in the landscape with the sheer elegance of naval architecture can be seen in the incised marks on the Waterlines sculpture, reinterpreting the draughtsman’s lines for the Thermopylae, one of the fastest clipper ships constructed in 1868 by Walter Hood & Co, Aberdeen. This blurring of lines between disciplines; functional engineering with the aesthetic in drawing and draughtsmanship, together with the implication of directional lines of navigation, create a fascinating dynamic or imaginative trajectory in the work and in the curatorial scope of the exhibition.

Thermopylae (Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collection)

The poetics of visual language in Will Maclean’s work with its use of found objects and multi-layered box construction, informed by family maritime history, seafaring stories and poetry is exemplified by Fear-bata The Boatman (Found objects, construction on board 2012). A weathered boat fragment belonging to the artist’s Grandfather takes the form of a cross section of hull, reimagined as the figurative form of an angel or totem inlaid beneath the picture plane. A tracery of drawn marks on the predominantly white ground casts the totemic object beneath the waterline of our collective unconscious. The interplay of shadows cast by the three dimensional construction of the central figurehead heightens the sense of an object spiritually unearthed. It is a powerful work in its conception, transcending personal associations and ancestry to connect with the universal archetype of the boat. Fear-bata The Boatman is a statement of creative resilience and a potent investigation of the crafting of images in its evolutionary use of box construction.

Voyage of the James Caird I, Elephant Island (Mixed Media on Board 2011) is similarly a journey of heightened perception with the suggestion of a monumental artic landscape of opaque and finely textured tonality, shifting like the ocean under sheets of ice. The curvature of drawn marks and their trajectory feel like a descent beneath the surface of the picture plane; a cut away revealing leaden contours of land and nailed wooden fragments. With the clarity of a draughtsman and the tactile physicality of a sculptor Maclean creates a multi-layered work of poignancy and grace. This frozen vision references a monumental voyage undertaken by Shackleton in a small open boat between Elephant Island and South Georgia. Voyage of the James Caird I, Elephant Island is an expansive mindscape of visual association, a testament to human endurance and a superbly balanced abstract composition.

It is inspiring to see the work of Marian Leven and Will Maclean represented permanently on site at the University of Aberdeen and in this temporary exhibition, acknowledging contemporary art and visual literacy as an important means of re-examining and illuminating cultural histories. It is equally encouraging to see vision in the fabric of an institutional building; incorporating spaces for research, learning, conservation and imaginative contemplation from which all knowledge ultimately stems. In many ways the architecture designed by schmidt hammer lassen embodies this creative engagement with public space. Striking asymmetrical designs together with the ever changing Northern climate animate the 760 glass panel façade of this striking contemporary building. Inside, the spiralling oblong atrium illuminates seven floors of study and collection space, with the lower ground floor beneath the building housing the Special Collections Centre. Significantly the centre contains learning, reading and seminar rooms for conferences, research, and outreach work, the university collections of books, manuscripts, photographs and archives dating back as far as the 3rd century BC and the Glucksman Conservation Centre specialising in the preservation of works on paper.

The design of the building as a meeting place and site of discovery for students, academics and the wider community is reflected in the Waterlines exhibition, providing different points of entry to contemporary visual art and in the scope of its accompanying programme of talks and events. Representation from different disciplines including Social Anthropology, Contemporary Visual Art practice and Archaeology together with creative events for adults and children working with box constructions, collage, sculpture, boat craft, stories and Pictish symbols will continue throughout March and April. Marian Leven and Will Maclean’s Waterlines is an exciting new marker in the Northern cultural landscape, signifying The Sir Duncan Rice Library, Gallery and Special Collections Centre as an emerging site of creative thinking and learning.

Public Talks & Events Accompanying the Waterlines Exhibition. Free Entry, Booking advised Contact: scc.events@abdn.ac.uk

As By Line Upon the Ocean Go with Professor Timothy Ingold, Chair in Social Anthropology, Thursday 14th March 6-7 pm

Thinking Visually with artists Will Maclean and Marian Leven, Sat 16th March 2-3pm

Standing Stones and Circles, Thursday 21st March with Dr Elizabeth Curtis 6-7pm

© Georgina Coburn, 2013

Links

• Sir Duncan Rice Library
• Video introduction to the work by Will Maclean and Marian Leven

IF THERE is one thing guaranteed to get my back up when going to a show that I do not know, it is to sit in my seat and open a nice glossy programme booklet to read up about the show before it starts only to find that someone has decided that the pages containing all the crucial information should be black, with small white, and sometimes red, lettering.

I WONDER if whoever came up with that thought at all about whether the audience would be able to read it in normal pre-performance auditorium lighting, let alone in the subdued lighting that had been decreed to reflect the darkness of the show.

Jekyll & Hyde (photo Inverness Opera)

Before going to Eden Court, what I had found out about this adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novella was that there had been a few tours of the United States, followed by a four-year run on Broadway during which it haemorrhaged a king’s ransom and failed to attract any stellar reviews from the critics. There was also a UK tour in 2011 featuring a certain Mr Marti Pellow from the popular ensemble known as Wet Wet Wet, but it never reached the West End.

The fact that Leslie Bricusse, who has made such a huge contribution to musical theatre, mostly during his partnership with Anthony Newley, was responsible for the lyrics boded well. Sadly, Frank Wildhorn, one of the pair behind the original show, decided not to use Bricusse for the music but to write it himself. A competent composer would have finished it before breakfast and had it published by lunchtime as “Variations on a Simple Motif”.

So what made the normally reliable Inverness Opera Company decide to try and make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear of this pig of a piece of musical theatre? The fact that the company had a lead actor in James Twigg who was capable of carrying off the hugely demanding dual title role, and carrying it off extremely well, would have been one factor. Another would have been the dozen or so supporting roles available for the stalwarts of Inverness Opera and thirdly there was a substantial amount of chorus involvement for all the other members.

James Twigg (photo Inverness Opera)

James Twigg was on stage very nearly from start to finish, either as the urbane and charming Dr Henry Jekyll or as his drug induced, schizophrenic, evil alter ego Edward Hyde. Both faces were equally accomplished although perhaps Hyde succeeded in slaughtering his victims with insufficient effort. His musical highlight came just as he was about to enter his laboratory to begin experimenting on himself. “This Is The Moment” is a crescendo based on the original motif of practically all the music in the show but Twigg delivered it well from the opening piano right through to the final fortissimo.

As co-starring ladies, Jekyll has his fiancée Emma Carew played by Sasha Devine, a slightly two-dimensional character with occasional flashes of independence and determination, while Hyde has the lady of the night Lucy Harris, played by Lesley MacLean with a good amount of feistiness and the two best songs of the show, “Bring On The Men”, and “A New Life”, both of which diverge from the basic motif.

The supporting characters read like a Who’s Who of Inverness Opera and all of them, young and not-so-young, played and sang their roles to the hilt. Lucy’s co-workers at the Red Rat, a house of ill repute, had to dance as well as sing and showed great ability with Caroline Nicol’s choreography. The members of the chorus performed well, with just the right degree of animation, and their delivery of “Murder, Murder” to open the second act was one of the highlights of the evening.
For the most part the set and costumes were hired in, but the slick stagecraft shown by George Reynolds and his team, and the atmospheric dressing under the direction of Wardrobe Mistress Marian Armstrong and her assistants all contributed to a very professionally presented performance.

And last but certainly not least, the Orchestra, under MD Fiona Stuart, provided a steady and reliable, if unobtrusive accompaniment to what was going on above their heads on the stage. Come Saturday night they are going to have been driven to distraction by that repetitive motif.

The past few years have shown the high standard that Inverness Opera normally achieves with shows like Anything Goes, Titanic or Guys and Dolls. The track record of Jekyll & Hyde should have warned that this is a show that lacks audience appeal, a fact born out by the Empire Theatre being scarcely a third full on opening night. One of the readable pages in the programme says that this musical was “Conceived for the stage by Steve Cuden and Frank Wildhorn”. Somebody should have told them about contraception.

© James Munro, 2013

Links

• Inverness Opera

THAT this show had only been initiated five days before within the rehearsal space of the Tramway, with three days for the vocalists to perfect their parts, made it all the more strikingly different.

PERFORMED as part of the Tramway’s Rip It Up season of new commissions and work-in-progress pieces designed and executed within and with support from the theatre itself, Away With the Birds is a collaboration between artist and composer Hanna Tuulikki, choreographer Rosalind Masson and film-maker Daniel Warren.

Rosalind Masson in Away With The Birds

The core idea is simple, yet gives the impression of being intensely complex to actually arrange. A meditation upon both the sound of birdsong and that of Gaelic folk singing, the piece involves six female performers – Tuulikki and Masson amongst them, all dressed uniformly in simple black dresses and red tights – performing Tuulikki’s voice-only score ‘Voice of the Bird’ against a backdrop of films by Warren showing scree and cliffs, sea waves rushing by and the performers themselves on a desolate grey beach.

Backed by gentle but evocative field recordings made on the Small Isles by Geoff Sample, the performers vocalise the song of birds as a series of squawks and syllables which are lent a chorus-like quality when the voices merge together, and a real sense of relational interaction through Masson’s deft, delicate choreography. The performers are unhurried as they glide steadily around the stage, falling into a V-shaped flight pattern and away into pairs and trios who regard each other with curious interest.

Then on more than one occasion these voices coalesce into haunting Gaelic melodies – even more impressive given that not all of the singers are native speakers – and the effect is complete. This is not a high-concept experiment, more a complete and immersive evocation of place and sense, an attempted re-imaging of wilderness landscapes both without any human involvement and filled with the echoing resonances of history and tradition.

Even as a forty-five minute try-out it was mesmerising to watch and listen to. The nine-voice version at May’s Tectonics festival in Glasgow (Old Fruitmarket, 11 May) and the intended 2014 performance and installation on the Isle of Canna – a great inspiration for the piece – will be worth waiting for.

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• Project website
• Tectonics Festival

ALAN Greig Theatre and Grant Smeaton‘s Do You Nomi? –  a melange of theatre and dance – kicked off Ullapool Dance Festival 2013. And two lithe male bodies, sinuously and sensuously traversed a stark white set, immediately commanded the attention of an expectant audience.

ICONIC, avant garde pop artist Klaus Nomi died before his unique style reached the masses. But he did come to the attention of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, for whom he is said to have been an inspiration. This show tells the story of Nomi’s short lived career and his premature demise from AIDS in 1983.

Drew Taylor in Do You Nomi? (photo Paul Watt)

It is a powerful reminder that the theatre is a forum for stories and that these stories have many directions of travel. Beyond the narrative unfolding on stage is a collective response on the part of the onlookers. Last night’s Highland audience was taken to the very brink of what might be considered socially acceptable. We were given insight into the gay scene of 1980s New York, where outrageous personal reinvention and casual sex were the norm.

However, an all-pervading quality of truth and innocence underpinned all four performances, so any confrontation or collision of values was averted. Instead, a tangible current of expression and resonance flowed between stage and auditorium and the possibility for a quantum shift in attitudes was born.

At one point, two characters each declare the other to be a freak. To which the reply is, “yes, a freak among freaks.” However, skilled direction on the part of award winning director Grant Smeaton, took the story way beyond the realms of cliché to expose a powerfully pulsating humanity in the hearts of its protagonists.

The two actors, Laurie Brown and Drew Taylor, danced admirably. And dancers Darren Anderson and Jack Webb, appeared, in turn, to take to acting with ease. There were seamless shifts between speech and movement and some slick changes of tempo, facilitated by a rollicking soundtrack and deft lighting. These ensured that the spell cast in the opening scene held to the last.

During the re-enaction of a TV interview, things could so easily have become static, but supremely talented choreographer Alan Greig was not going to let that happen. As the dialogue progressed, the performers gracefully moved on and around their chairs adding a visual dimension to the conversation.

To create a piece of theatre that is groundbreaking on so many levels is admirable enough. However, to do it in such a way that the audience is unaware of the shifts of awareness and acceptance that it is undergoing, is truly astounding. Do You Nomi? is a creative collaboration, underpinned by immense skill and shot through with vitality and passion. Now this tour has ended, we should lobby for its return.

© Jenny McBain, 2013

Links

• Alan Greig Dance Theatre
• Grant Smeaton
• Ullapool Dance Festival

AN EXCITED buzz filled the Empire Theatre, thronged with an audience which, while still predominantly female, had a healthy leavening of males by comparison with last year’s debut by this exciting all-male troupe.

FIVE of last year’s company of eight dancers were back, accompanied by five new recruits, whittled down from about five hundred applicants. Business is booming in the male dance world. This year’s programme featured just two works, the first of which was made on the company by Liam Scarlett, still only 26 but already a rising star of the choreographic world. In the video introduction, Scarlett talked about the challenges he’d faced creating a work for an all-male company when usually, the female dancers drive the work.

Balletboyz

Serpent started out mesmerically, the dancers lying prone on the stage, one lifting an arm with the fingers closed, questing almost like a bird, the others joining in. There was almost a hint of Dali’s Swans Reflecting Elephants.

The work continued with the dancers moving fluidly, flowing like herds, or flocks, or hordes of unnameable creatures, with some pleasing segments, of which a quintet against a warm, golden lit background was particularly lovely, and some interestingly sculptural groupings. The dancers were bare-torsoed, clad in flesh-coloured, cut-off leggings; a costume design which focused all attention ruthlessly on their (admittedly impressive) musculature; the overall effect sometimes recalled a classical Greek vase but, more often, a Calvin Klein commercial.

This wouldn’t have mattered had the choreography been a little more inventive; however, by paring the look of the piece down and using a limited repertoire of fluid movements, Scarlett was perhaps overly narrowing his options; despite achieving his aim of creating fluid, beautiful, strong movements, and a sound choice of score by Max Richter, Serpent at times felt slightly empty.

The second half was another new work, Fallen, by Russell Maliphant, a regular collaborator with BalletBoyz. In his video intro he talked about enjoying watching dancers learn from each other, but didn’t mention what must also be true, that choreographers learn from watching dancers.

Having worked for over two decades with some of the greatest dancers alive today, Maliphant has a vast array of choreographic experience to draw on. Opening with a sequence which could have been directed by Busby Berkeley, had he been given the script of The Shawshank Redemption, there was always a tantalising sense that there was a meaning behind the movements with a story unfolding on the bare stage (a factory? a prison? purgatory?) though it was never made explicit.

Maliphant demanded more from the dancers, and got it, with a rich complexity of physical structures, shapes, transitions and textures combining to make a hugely energetic, very satisfying work, of which Michael Hulls’ lighting was, as always, a fundamental part. Minor caveats aside, BalletBoyz are still one of the most exciting dance companies around.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Balletboyz
• Jennie Macfie

JOINING forces with harpsichord soloist Jan Waterfield the Scottish Ensemble’s latest tour featured musical earworms from across the centuries with works by Geminiani, Górecki, Williams, Holst, Vivaldi, Britten and Suckling.

EXPLORING repetition in rhythm, harmony and melody, the programme and performances highlighted the joy and energy of musical ideas expanded and held in the mind of composer and audience. Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso ‘La Follia’ (1727) opened the concert in a stately fashion, expanding into a cascade of 24 variations and providing a lively introduction to the programme that followed.

Scottish Ensemble (photo Joanne Green)

Górecki’s hugely enjoyable but rhythmically unrelenting Harpsichord Concerto (1980) provided a rare opportunity to see the instrument amplified and creating an extraordinary range of sound. From the opening, reminiscent of the intro to a Rock power ballad, the work moves cyclically with a rhythmic impetus that is surprisingly mesmerising. There are times when the music resembles the movement of a hurdy gurdy or broken down circus ride, with the oscillating harpsichord driving the work into an almost meditative state.

This constant presence punctuated by variations of key and tempo provided form and variation, with entertaining sequences evocative of Horror soundtracks or a slice of Hitchcock. Humorous interludes aside, the core of this work is in the hands of the soloist, at times pitted against the strings and Jan Waterfield’s compelling performance succeeded in revealing an entirely unexpected side to the instrument and its powerful capacity for expression.

It was a pleasure to hear British contemporary composer Martin Suckling’s third musical postcard, Chimes at Midnight, commissioned by the Ensemble. These postcard compositions have been exciting additions to the Ensemble’s repertoire, and this wonderfully atmospheric piece is no exception. The high squeezed sound of violins and deep double bass feel like nocturnal churnings of the mind, with sound emerging out of an inky ground of unconscious thought.

Vaughan Williams beautiful Violin Concerto ‘Concerto Accademico’ (1925) returned the audience to more familiar territory with its melodic folk tunes and evocation of the British countryside. The expansiveness of solo violin and strings create a sonic/spatial element of sky and hills and, although considerably more robust than his The Lark Ascending, is no less moving, especially in the second movement Adagio with solo cello.

Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite (1912) continued the English folk theme with its resoundingly familiar melodies contrasted in the third movement Intermezzo with an exotic and mysterious interlude by solo violin, like a musical tale from the Arabian Nights. The combination of introspective melody; Greensleeves and the jig-like rhythms of The Dargason Circles played in a series of intricate variations create a dynamic final movement to this captivating work. The quality of performance highlighted the sensibility of all the musical elements at play in the concerto, together with the repetition of thematic content in the work of individual composers as a catalyst for further development.

Górecki ‘s 3 Pieces in the Old Style (1963) was another highlight of the concert, an exploration of repetition over centuries of musical styles which in the second movement Menuetto echoes early sacred music making in its processional rhythm and underpinning dirge. Melodically anchored to the folk music of his native Poland, this work has an ancient and contemplative feel which resonated in the Scottish Ensemble’s beautifully articulate performance.

Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso no. 10 in B minor (1711) featured magnificent solo performances in dialogue with each other. This joyful and vibrant performance of a familiar and well-loved work transformed it, highlighting the way that the Scottish Ensemble led by lead violinist and Artistic Director Jonathan Morton are able to actively alter the audience perception of standard classical repertoire. This heightened experience is facilitated by each member of the ensemble who clearly love and are invigorated by the music they perform.

Britten’s playful Simple Symphony (1934) provided a fitting finale to a programme infused with imaginative connections and the infinite variety of repetition. The obsessive, innovative and transformative dimensions of sound were brilliantly celebrated in a programme of pure enjoyment and insight.

© Georgina Coburn, 2013

Links

• Scottish Ensemble

A BILLBOARD on the stage, amid all the other jumble of a rummage through history, was a reminder that Scottish Opera is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.

THAT billboard was to promote two operas in the King’s Theatre Glasgow, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande during the week from 5th to 9th June 1962, and with those performances the cherished dream of Alexander Gibson was realised.

Opera Highlights 2013 – Nicky Spence, Eleanor Dennis, Katie Grosset and Duncan Rock (photo Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

Some might argue that Scottish Opera is in fact celebrating its fifty-first anniversary as nearly everything had been in place to present three performances each of Don Pasquale by Donizetti (with Ian Wallace in the title role) and a double bill of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale and Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle in June 1961. What had not been in place was a grant from the then Scottish Committee of the Arts Council of £1713; a request that was turned down on the grounds that the application had arrived too late to be included in the Council’s annual financial budget. Such things could never happen today. Could they?

One thing that Alexander Gibson did not allow Scottish Opera to become was a Glasgow-centric organisation. The intention was always for the company to tour around the Scottish centres, first in 1963 to Edinburgh, then in 1964 to Aberdeen and later to Perth. Scaled down productions were conceived to go into smaller venues, known affectionately as SOOT (Scottish Opera on Tour) and SOFA (Scottish Opera for All), and then there was Essential Scottish Opera, which morphed into the annual Opera Highlights – four young singers, a piano and a basket of props touring here, there and everywhere from Bathgate to Bowmore, from Barra to Benbecula, from Banchory to Birnam and many points in between.

One of these points in between was Inverness, where a packed OneTouch Theatre enjoyed this nostalgic journey of reminiscences and arias from operas in the company’s repertoire over the past half century in a programme put together by Scottish Opera’s Head of Music, Derek Clark with script and direction from Adrian Osmond.

This year’s cast was, for a change, completely Celtic. Making her Scottish Opera debut was soprano Eleanor Dennis, born in Aberdeenshire but trained in London and returning home for this tour. Hers is most certainly a voice to listen out for in the future. In the mezzo role was Edinburgh’s Katie Grosset, a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist, seen recently in these parts as Flora and Annina in the touring production of La Traviata, and returning to Eden Court in May as Edith in The Pirates of Penzance.

The well-kent face in the cast was Doonhamer Nicky Spence, the tenor who was recently seen as Tamino in The Magic Flute and will be The Steersman this spring in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. Sadly his navigational skills will see him cruising along only the M8 and not up the A9. Making up the quartet of singers and a most welcome visitor from Wales was baritone Gary Griffiths, whose voice fully justifies his choice as the Wales representative in this year’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

In the pit, well, tucked behind a curtain and effectively impersonating an orchestra, was pianist Claire Haslin who must be one of the busiest musicians in Scotland – staff repetiteur for Scottish Opera, teacher at the Conservatoire, Glasgow University and Douglas Academy, accompanist with her husband, baritone Phil Gault, and mother.

As is always the case for Opera Highlights, the programme was a mix of well-known favourites and forgotten gems, running to twenty-one pieces, plus an encore. The first half opened and closed with drinking songs involving the full ensemble, from Verdi’s La Traviata to Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, book-ending Mozart, Britten, Tchaikovsky, von Weber, Bizet, Puccini, more Verdi, Smetana and Handel. If a highlight has to be chosen it would be Eleanor Dennis as The Governess in Britten’s The Turn of The Screw; or maybe Nicky Spence languishing in prison as Smetana’s Dalibor; or even the full quartet sailing “Over the bright blue waters” from Oberon by von Weber.

Neither well-known nor forgotten, the duet that opened the second half was a brand new piece, written for the tour, by Scottish Opera’s Composer in Residence, Gareth Williams. Eleanor Dennis and Nicky Spence are sitting at adjacent but single tables slowing forging a relationship in a somewhat Sondheimesque way. Delightfully sung and discretely acted, “Hand” was certainly a contender for Highlight of the Evening.

There followed pieces from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, then a spectacular “Oh pale blue dawn” from The Golden Cockerel by Rimsky-Korsakov, with Eleanor Dennis draped in gold with a lengthy train, more peacock than cockerel. Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the two couples from The Gondoliers by G&S gave way to a powerful if gruesome delivery by Gary Griffiths of “The Executioner’s Song” from Inez de Castro by James MacMillan.

It has to be asked whether practice made perfect for Katie Grosset in her delivery of “The Typsy Waltz” from La Perichole by Offenbach, especially looking back to her role as Frosch the jailer in the drinking song from Die Fledermaus. Luckily the Props Department back at Scottish Opera’s Production Centre in Glasgow maintains a generous supply of empties, courtesy of Moët et Chandon.

There was time for just two more excerpts, both from the period when John Mauceri was Music Director of Scottish Opera, having succeeded Sir Alexander Gibson in 1987. There was the emotive “Lonely House” from Street Scene by Kurt Weill – a final solo spot for Nicky Spence – and then a look forward to the next fifty years with an ensemble “Make our garden grow” from Candide by Leonard Bernstein, one of Scottish Opera’s greatest achievements as even the composer considered this production as the definitive version of his work.

This retrospective was about more than just the music of fifty years; the links provided anecdotes and stories of what has gone on behind the scenes, and the encore provided Eleanor Dennis with the opportunity to parade in a succession of costumes as well as sounding a caveat about the precariousness of the profession – Noël Coward’s “Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington!” Derek Clark, how do you follow that? What are you going to cram into the minibus for next year’s Opera Highlights?

© James Munro, 2013

Links

• Scottish Opera

THE NAME ‘six degrees west’ fixes a group to a measured distance from the prime meridium which goes right through Greenwich but it gives you quite a bit of latitude.

SIMILARLY, this group exhibition, INCH KENNETH, curated by Alicia Hendrick, stems from limiting the scope to one particular island, west of Mull. There’s no shortage of islands that way, from the iconic line of the Dutchman’s Cap in the Treshnish islands to the basalt of Staffa or the sickening jagged nature of the Torran Rocks. But the more pastoral Inch Kenneth has a significant history in its own right, layered over centuries.

David Faithfull (photo Shannon Tofts)

If you take Murdo Macdonald’s approach that ancient artifacts can’t simply be sidelined as historical objects but can be seen simply as made things, just older ones, then the carved stones I witnessed, reclining on Inch Kenneth some thirty years ago, are important works of art. There was a tradition of burying the noble dead here if conditions prevented reaching Iona. Equally iconic now is the layer of history linked to the once grand house on Inch Kenneth where the residency actually took place.

The house was owned by the Mitford family during the second world war. The society daughters chose varying paths. Diana went on to marry Oswald Mosley, founder of the British fascist party. Unity corresponded intimately with Hitler. And Jessica thought uncle Joe Stalin was just fine and communism was the road to the future.

Veronica Slater - Map Shadow, the house on Inch Kenneth (photo Shannon Tofts)

The family tension must have come to a head when Unity attempted suicide, on the mainland, but returned as an invalid to live out some more damaged years, on the island. It’s a script you couldn’t write, for fear of being thought theoretical or sensational. But that’s part of the history of this house.

It’s picked up directly by David Faithfull in his bound folio of digital prints with a screen-printed cover. The colour background alludes to both Nazi and Communist sympathies. The print medium and its presentation in this bound folio lends itself well to presentation of a body of work made in response to being a resident artist’s group in this place. I spoke in depth to Veronica Slater, who attended the opening in An Lanntair with David.

She explained that some work in the show came, as you might expect, as a spontaneous response and other pieces came later, as a hard-won body of work. There is a range of styles and favoured media in the show and this seems a healthy thing in bringing together such a residency. I suggested to Veronica that there could be parallels with the ethos of the Triangle Trust international artists’ workshops which led to a pilot project in North Uist then a series of three Scottish Island workshops.

The difference is that there is no exhibition or product in mind in the Triangle ethos – a deliberate policy. You might say there’s a risk of a possible lack of focus but a gain in that artists, both early in their careers and established, are encouraged to think, experiment or interact – or all of these – and possibly arrive at something which could be outside or extending the scope of their usual working practice.

No doubt thanks to a range of factors, the 6° WEST concept has resulted in a very worthwhile exhibition. These factors must include sensitive curatorial input, including choice of artists, management of challenging logistics and support of the galleries the show will be linked to. But most of all, the commitment of the individual artists has to be the crucial element.

Mhairi Killin (photo Shannon Tofts)

Mhairi Killin takes a more minimal approach than the others. In An Lanntair, a wall is built so a corridor is simulated. The sort of tag you might find on vintage luggage, hints at more clues to elusive lives. There is a particular mirror, with layers of allusion, but you have to look for clues. Outside, there is the most delicate assemblage which is so striking it revitalizes a possible cliché in the art of working with things found – a Gaelic/Japanese aesthetic seems present. There is also an editioned print which combines some of these elements as motifs.

Anne Devine (photo Shannon Tofts)

Anne Devine’s work is cleverly placed adjacent. This is drawing essentially, though colour is used too – it is discovery by doing. The fluency and energy of the drawing provides the interest as opposed to the delicate balance in her neighbour’s pieces. The figures in the drawing suggest folklore and mythology. Many elements are gathered in a large scale vibrant work, oil wax and resin on linen. It’s a bit like placing a more sprawling but energetic novel beside a tight series of short-stories. Again, a print has also been produced, this time in stone lithography.

Veronica Slater has gone for one telling thing – the porthole-type window. Then she repeats it, expands, plays with it. So windows are contained within windows. She has taken a colour swatch from the interior décor and painted a large circle on the gallery wall. Within that are circles which could either be looking out, through weather, towards a mainland or looking within the rooms of the house.

Veronica Slater (photo Shannon Tofts)

I have been within these walls but more than thirty years ago. A friend was invited by the then caretakers and brought me along. I’d been expecting something more opulent. Instead there was a consistent arts and crafts look and feel to the quite spare but elegant furnishings. Veronica Slater is clearly an artist who loves her materials as well as her subject. She has observed how damp has affected the fabric of walls and reproduced its effect with a wide range of media, orchestrated within her large circle. On an opposing wall, a group of smaller circles uses similar techniques.

You could say that her vision sees ageing and weathering as a gradual enrichening.What might have been once quite spare has become opulent. Similarly her Giclee print – a straightforward photographic means of reproduction which I must say doesn’t excite me the way the slightly uncertainties inevitable in other print media does – has an additional layer imposed by screenprinting.

David Faithfull takes us back outside to the tidal regions where bleached cetacean bones can be found amongst whitened driftwood. He shows a whole body of work, enough for an exhibition in its own right, linked to a 20th century literary reference to a leviathan – a text from William Golding’s Pincher Martin. The list of materials reads like poetry. A central large-scale drawing, on paper and linen is made in “gouache, meteorite and oak gall ink”. Although the drawings are mainly monochrome and the subject matter is exterior, the allusions are as often literary classics as family-history. The overall effect is again rich.

Shelved and floor-mounted sculptures reproduce the beautiful bone shapes in cedar-wood – a transformation from the bible. This is an artist who loves the book as a form in itself. I’m sure one day soon artists will make work from the dead shells of Kindles, but right now I find that difficult to see.

Shannon Tofts documented the process of the workshop and the acts of making in still and moving images, installed to make good use of the busy An Lanntair foyer and to lead custom into the show. Veronica also shows an intriguing attempt to draw the moving shadows cast by a tenacious small tree, in pebbles or shells. I loved her title for a video piece focusing on this strange, tall, island house –‘Home’ Movie.

Veronica Slater’s printed works were made at Highland Print Studios (David Faithfull is a master printer and printed his own prints; Anne Devine worked with master printer Elspeth Lamb to produce her stone lithography, and Mhairi Killin worked with Edinburgh Print Studio). The idea of using HPS as a mainland hub is one seen before at An Lanntair in their touring exhibition Is A Thing Lost?, exploring storytelling in mainly visual terms. It’s inspiring to see this excellent facility continue to take traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques to such a level of excellence.

Ian Stephen is assisting Christine Morrison this week at Highland Print Studios, making a series of four prints, derived from voyages to outlying islands. Each uses the photo-polymer process (monochrome) and screen-printed texts in colour.

© Ian Stephen, 2013

Links

• 6° WEST Artists Collective
• Ian Stephen

IN THE BAR after the show, two of the staff are playing cards.

IT looks like a game of snap rather than the poker that has dominated the second half of Conor McPherson’s play, but you can see where they got the idea from. Like the endless stream of Irish whiskey and American lager consumed on stage, the card playing is as addictive for the characters as it is compelling for us. It takes extra will power not to leave the theatre and go straight to a gambling den.

The Seafarer (photo Eamonn McGoldrick)

But if you did, who knows what demons you might conjure? The Seafarer is about James “Sharky” Harkin who is joined, in his brother’s house on Christmas Eve, by a man called Mr Lockhart. It seems Sharky has forgotten the card game he played with Lockhart 25 years ago when, in return for his freedom from police custody, he wagered his very soul. Now, Lockhart is back, ready for the follow-up game they promised. The stakes are just as high.

Not that anyone else on stage realises it. Much of the tragi-comic tension of the play lies in the contrast between Sharky’s life-and-death dilemma and the all-out hedonism of the other characters. While he looks the devil in the eye, his blind and elderly brother Richard carouses with Nicky and Ivan, his hard-drinking pals. They’re the sort who have whiskey for breakfast, spend the day on a pub crawl and return home for more drink until they crash out on the floor.

You learn everything about their attitude to alcohol in a brief exchange between the brothers. After they agree to go into town to get supplies for Christmas Day, Richard insists on dictating a shopping list. He goes into loving detail about the drink, paying attention to everyone’s favourite tipple and taking care to order enough. When it comes to the food, however, he says they’ll decide when they see it. He’s irritated even to be asked.

In Rachel O’Riordan’s production, there’s a squeamish comedy about all this. Sean O’Callaghan’s Ivan is on the self-destructive path to losing his wife and kids, but is more concerned about losing his glasses. In his white socks and designer jacket, Tony Flynn’s Nicky sees himself as a high-flyer, but is as much a slave to drink as the rest of them. And Ciaran McIntyre’s Richard is an irascible egotist whose apparent generosity and friendship is, like that of a spoilt child, always provisional.

They create the noisy backdrop (sometimes a little too noisy) to the sober confrontation between Louis Dempsey’s cautious, hard-bitten Sharky and Benny Young’s otherworldly Lockhart. What emerges from behind the play’s ribald banter is a reflection on lives wasted, mistakes made and memories lost in a haze of alcohol. Performed with ferocity by the five-strong ensemble, it is compulsively watchable.

© Mark Fisher, 2013

Links

• Perth Theatre
• Mark Fisher

THE repertory success of My Name is Rachel Corrie around the globe can surely be attributed to a number of factors, not least its impetus as a piece of drama and the ease of staging a play with only one simple set and a single castmember.

EVEN more so, though, the sheer resonance of the story, of Corrie’s establishment as a normal young woman of hope and principle who undergoes a journey of discovery to the heart of a personal and international tragedy, is the kind of tale you experience and then wish everyone you know had seen with you. That it’s repeated so often is a good thing for our knowledge of the world, but it’s the kind of text that should be treated with care or left alone.

Mairi Phillips in My Name is Rachel Corrie (photo Tim Morozzo)

Director Ros Philips and actress Mairi Phillips have previous where My Name is Rachel Corrie is concerned, having staged it at the Citizens in Glasgow before embarking on this Scotland-wide tour with Mull Theatre. Crucially, Phillips gives a strong and endearing performance as Corrie, the 23-year-old American peace activist who was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip by a bulldozer driven by a member of the Israeli Defence Force in 2003, while attempting to stop it advancing on a Palestinian home.

Adapted from the journals, e-mails and even answerphone messages of Corrie herself, a keen writer, by the actor Alan Rickman and Guardian journalist Katharine Viner, this is crucially not a polemic or a story which imagines our opinion or knowledge of the Palestinian situation is set when we enter the theatre. It’s literally Corrie’s own story, her journey from an excitable early-90s adolescent who immerses herself in the “trivia” of small town life and obsesses over boys she likes in Olympia, Washington, whose eyes are opened to the breadth and depth of the world on a visit to Russia.

Phillips’ Corrie is vibrant and believable, the American accent perfectly-pitched and her unceasing movement around the stage placing us right there within a state of earnest emotional restlessness. One of the great subtleties of the text is that, while Corrie’s youthful idealism presents an eventually one-sided and arguably naïve view of the overall conflict, her eyewitness testimony dramatically brings home the on-the-ground horror ordinary Palestinians experience.

More than that, though, this is a definitive tale of political and spiritual awakening with some real lump-in-the-throat moments, not least a frank and beautifully tender email conversation between Corrie and her “neoliberal” father just as things are getting dangerous. The staging amid a bedframe, some anthropomorphic table lamps and a rucksack full of gear is efficient although obviously low-budget (two small televisions detract somewhat from the impact of the video inserts), but this high-quality version is effective enough to carry an impact long after Phillips has taken a well-deserved bow.

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• Mull Theatre

IT’S rare in a gig that the banter from the band can cover topics as diverse as Edwardian facial hair, the tagging of Shetland Islanders, kennels for men and political uncertainty as symbolised by a poorly organised Burns supper, but then Session A9 are no ordinary band.

THE boys (Marc Clement on guitar and vocals, Gordon Gunn on fiddle and mandolin, Brian MacAlpine on piano, David Robertson on percussion with Kevin Henderson, Charlie McKerron and Adam Sutherland on fiddle) are frequently regarded as one of Scotland’s ‘super groups’ of fiddlers and, hard as it may seem to believe, have been casting their infectious brand of hearty Scots tunes and superbly tight musicianship over the Scottish music scene for over 10 years now.

Session A9

Much of the material for their gig at Findhorn’s Universal Hall came from their new and exciting self-titled album, but old favourites from What Road?, Bottlenecks and Armbreakers and One for the Road (delivered with some fresh twists) were warmly welcomed.

The boys kicked the night off with a rousing series of ‘Wedding Polkas’ with the gentle ‘The Surfing Bride’ before climaxing with ‘One for Oliver’. A taut set of strathspeys – ‘The Real Mackay Wedding’, ‘Struy Lodge’, ‘Trip to the Market’ – followed before the boys settled into a series of tunes and reels including ‘Lady Montgomery’s Reel’, Jerry Holland’s ‘Mutt’s Favourite’ and Shetland’s very own ‘Up da Strouds the Sailor Goes’.

After ‘Paella Grande’ and new tune ‘Ridree’, the boys took a quick breather before returning with a set of tunes from their back catalogue including ‘Trip to Austin’, ‘The Arm Breaker’, ‘Duncan The Gauger’ and ‘Jig O’ Beer’ whilst the bluesy ‘Kirstie’s’ and ‘Garry Porch’ set the scene for new track, the racy ‘The Bellydancer’ (although Brian and Charlie’s promise to do their own belly dancing sadly failed to materialise), before calming things down with Gordon’s beautifully tender ‘The Birds Have Gone’ and a well pitched version of Karine Polwart’s ‘Dig a Little Well for Zoë’.

Old favourite Tim Edey’s ‘Celtic Thunder’ and ‘Pressed for Time’ saw Brian’s piano take a fair battering as the boys cranked up the pace and there was little respite before the speedy finale of fiddle tunes ‘Sporting Paddy/Hamish the Carpenter/Hull’s reel/Road to Errogie’ saw the Findorn audience on their feet for some last minute dancing. The boys returned for an encore with a raw and gutsy cover of the John Martyn track ‘One for the Road’ (so much better live) and a final set of jigs and reels.

Always best as a live band, their sheer enjoyment in playing together is hard to resist. If you want to see some of Scotland’s finest musicians at the top of their game then you’d be hard pressed to beat them. Their short tour has just finished but for more footage of the boys on their travels, and updates on future gigs, have a look at their page on “that facebook thingy”.

© Billy Rough, 2013

Links

• Universal Hall Events
• Session A9

SORREN Maclean spent much of his childhood in and around An Tobar, Tobermory’s renowned arts centre where his father Gordon is Artistic Director.

LISTENING to a comprehensively wide range of musicians, the younger Maclean has forged his own musical path, informed by traditional Scots music but also incorporating dollops of Americana, jazz and pop. He is also a founder member of indie-pop outfit Kitty The Lion.

Sorren MacLean

That he’s comfortable with a wide-ranging musical palette is evident from the first chord, where he sings conversationally, accompanied by his own guitar, Luciano Rossi’s piano and later Danny Grant’s restrained percussion. It’s country-ish and jazz-y all at the same time, and very beguiling. Other songs also show an alt-country influence, like the fine ‘Way Back Home’, which fits into the territory of infectiously catchy songs also occupied by the Delgadoes and Biffy Clyro, with nicely shaped lyrics “Glimmering, shimmering in the Northern Lights”.

Fiddle players Hannah Fisher and Seonaid Aitken and cellist Su-a Lee (well known to fans of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Mr McFall’s Chamber) are thanked for their help arranging the strings, which have some interesting dissonances and unpredictability. Lee switches to the musical saw, Aitken to the piano and Rossi picks up lead guitar for the next song, the impressive ‘Rows and Rows of Boxes’.

Written over Christmas and Hogmanay on Mull, his collection of songs for this Celtic Connections commission is entitled Winter Stay Autumn. The title track is particularly lovely, with smooth warm vocal harmonies and lots of space, restrained percussion offsetting passionate cello and building to an ecstatic resolution before jumping sideways into a fast driving rock-style finish. Maclean demonstrates in his addition to the new:voices strand that he completely understands the craft of song-writing.

Last year’s winner of the BBC’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition, Oban’s Rona Wilkie, debuted her new:voices commission Ceangailte (Connected) the previous week. Starting with a setting of the Carmina Gaedelica sung by clarsach player Rachel Newton accompanied by Patsy Reid (fiddle), Marit Fält (octave mandolin), Hayden Powell (trumpet), Colin Nicolson (accordion) and Allan MacDonald Jr (pipes/percussion/vocals) and Wilkie herself, it was a delightful musical exploration of the history of the Highlands.

Competitors in this year’s Young Trad final included very impressive showings by Inverness fiddler Graham Mackenzie and Argyll pianist Andrew Dunlop, while Lewis singer/songwriter Miss Irenie Rose’ debuted at Hazy Recollections; for those who haven’t had the pleasure of hearing her, imagine the fusion of Nick Drake, Amy Winehouse and Joni Mitchell with flashes of gospelsinger fervour.

Meanwhile entrants on the Danny Kyle stage included Charlie Grey, currently a student at Plockton and tipped as one to watch by a noted radio producer…. On the strength of these and many other performances, including the traditional music students at the Royal Conservatoire in their annual show, shared this year with students from Stockholm, the future of traditional music is looking very bright indeed.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Celtic Connections
• Sorren Maclean on Facebook

SOMETHING extraordinary happened to the late Tommy McHugh.

HE WAS an ordinary Birkenhead bloke with a bit of a shady past. He’d had scrapes with the law when he was younger and had subsequently made a living as a builder and odd-job man. Then, at the age of 60, two blood vessels burst in his head. When he awoke a week later from a coma, lucky to be alive, he found himself possessed by an irresistible urge to create.

Having never shown any artistic interest before, McHugh had suddenly become a compulsive painter and poet. He produced hundreds of artworks, was given to talking in rhyme and discovered untapped reserves of sensitivity.

Paul Cunningham and David Toole (photo Eamonn McGoldrick)

Playwright Danny Start befriended him and saw the potential for a play about his rare condition, known in the neurological profession as “sudden artistic output syndrome”. You can see his point. Not only is it a bizarre and intriguing story in itself, but it raises questions about the nature of identity, the possibility of changing personality and the mysteries of the mind.

Fascinating stories don’t always make fascinating theatre, however. In particular, plays about the brain are frequently too inward looking to have much dramatic punch. They depend on random medical events over which the protagonists have no control, making them passive players in their own story. Even the mighty Peter Brook ended up more reflective than dynamic when he staged the curious true-life medical stories reported by Oliver Sacks in The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.

So it is with Start’s play, In an Alien Landscape, for Scotland’s Birds of Paradise. He positions the fictional Albie Quinn in a kind of dream world, drifting between the moment of his double brain aneurism and his rebirth as an artist, with mental journeys back to his youth and his fraught relationships with his hard-as-nails father and his forgiving wife. Into the mix, he throws the voice of an alter-ego and of an American doctor who has suffered a similar brain malfunction. The effect is poetic and impressionistic, but also bitty and low in forward momentum.

We already know the most amazing part of the story – that a builder woke up one day as an artist – and none of the background detail changes that or tells us what happened next. Still, in Julie Ellen’s production there are three good-hearted performances from Paul Cunningham as Albie, and Morag Stark and David Toole as the voices inside his head.

© Francis McLachlan, 2013

Links

• Birds of Paradise

MEMORY defeats me when it comes to recalling the last visit to Inverness by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra accompanied by their Chief Conductor.

THAT IS not to say that we have not enjoyed many memorable concerts from this orchestra, it is just that Inverness has been failing to register on the radar of a succession of Chief Conductors. The present incumbent, Edinburgh born Donald Runnicles – his voice still showing traces of seventeen years in California – apologised in his pre-concert talk for taking so long to reach the Highland capital, not just the three years or so since he took the helm of the BBC SSO, but in fact in his life. Maestro, after Saturday evening, you are forgiven!

Donald Runnicles

The concert title told us that “Runnicles conducts Beethoven’s Fifth” but it not tell us that the whole evening was an exploration of generations of music in Vienna. Opening with Austria’s alternative national anthem, Runnicles showed that it was possible to imbue the Blue Danube Waltz of Johann Strauss the younger with a fresh interpretation by breaking up the standard flow of the waltz tempo by introducing very short pauses between the sequence of dance themes. This was a well thought out and reconstructed interpretation.

Moving forward a mere two generations to 1935 to the Second, or post-Mahlerian, Viennese Musical School, the Lithuanian born violinist and Pinchas Zukerman protégé Julian Rachlin joined the BBC SSO for the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg. The work is dedicated to the memory of an angel, the 18 year old Manon, daughter of Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and his wife Alma Schindler, the widow of Mahler.

From the very opening notes of the short ‘Preludium’, Rachlin had the measure of the atmospheric contrasts between his violin and the brass and wind sections. As this opening section segued into the ‘Scherzo’, naturally the listener was expected to adjust to the less familiar twelve tone music of Berg, but once that step had been taken Rachlin had the emotions of both a requiem and occasional waltz rhythms flowing out with intense depth.

Much of the second part of the Concerto is a ‘Cadenza’ for the soloist, but with fairly frequent orchestral interjections, and Rachlin followed Berg’s flights of possibly fearful imagination into what the composer may well have known was to be his own requiem as well as that for the young Manon. The Concerto comes to a stirring climax marked ‘Adagio’ with a set of chorale variations that are inspired by J S Bach. At times complex with Rachlin playing pizzicato with simultaneous bowing; at times spiritual, with instruments of the wind section playing together in the manner of a small organ, there is the gradual crescendo until death triumphs over life and the ethereal angel floats away to Heaven.

To open the second half the BBC SSO played Anton Webern’s orchestration for strings and winds of Schubert’s Six German Dances, D.820. All are positively charming and so illustrative of the way that melodies could flow from Schubert’s pen. Rushed off and scored for piano they were six of many dances that Schubert used to keep the wolf from the door. Ironically after they were rediscovered in 1931, Webern orchestrated them for a flat fee rather than royalties from which he would have done quite well as their popularity far exceeded anything else he wrote.

And so to the symphony of the concert’s title – the Symphony No 5 in C minor, op.67, by Beethoven – and probably the most popular and frequently played of all the symphonies in the orchestral repertoire. The older members of the population will remember the opening motif, dit, dit, dit, dah, being used by the BBC during the Second World War to introduce inspirational broadcasts by Winston Churchill as the four notes were the morse code for the letter V, for Victory. How ironic that Beethoven was arguably the greatest ever German composer!

But in all likelihood it was this symphony in the programme that had the Empire Theatre filled to the rafters. Runnicles launched himself into the work even before the audience were fully settled and gave it a freshness and vibrancy that is often missing in the famous recordings by Karajan and the like in the 1960s. The rhythms were tight and precise, the playing was on the edge and the result was thirty five minutes of sheer joy and excitement. It even passed the ultimate test – the audience stopped coughing.

Maestro Runnicles, haste ye back!

© James Munro, 2013

Links

• BBC SSO

THIS contribution to the Britten centenary celebrations may have been only a semi-staged performance of the opera, but it was a memorable one.

THE latest collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Scottish Opera revived Olivia Fuchs’ 2005 production for the Royal Opera House, and gave the cast an opportunity to work with the acclaimed director.

Countertenor Tom Verney as Oberon (© KK Dundas and RCS)

Hers is an (in)famously austere production, a contrast made all the more vivid for me by having recently watched a recording of a very colourful French production. To judge the full impact of her work, it would be necessary to see the stage production reserved for Glasgow and Edinburgh, but this semi-staged performance gave something of its flavour, all austere black costumes (the white-suited Oberon excepted) and cool blue lighting.

The logistics of moving the full set up here for one show apparently proved too complex, but the trade-off we enjoyed was hearing Britten’s wonderful score with greater clarity and presence from having the orchestra, conducted by Timothy Dean, on stage behind the singers and a few simple props – a purple armchair, a couple of crates and a hanging rope, later augmented by some smaller chairs.

Britten’s magical sound world reflected the shift in emphasis which he and Peter Pears initiated in converting Shakespeare’s drama for the opera. The focus here is more on the fairy world than the human one, a realm musically contrasted with the pastiche of Italian opera created for the Rude Mechanicals and their hilarious performance of Pyramus and Thisbe.

The young cast coped well with the challenges of the opera. Countertenor Tom Verney was impressive as Oberon, while aerial artist Jami Reid-Quarrell was a vibrant, hyperactive Puck. A mixed chorus of boys and girls stood in for the boy trebles as Tytania’s band of fairy helpers, the Queen herself was ably sung by Elinor Rolfe Johnson, as were the roles of the four mortals – Catriona Morison as Hermia, Anush Hovhannisyan as Helena, Andreas Backlund as Lysander and Daniel O’Connor as Demetrius.

Peter Quince’s band of rustics all revelled in their comic opportunities, led by Andrew McTaggart as Bottom, and their performance before Theseus (Dominic Barberi) and Hippolyta (Elfa Dröfn Stefándóttir) was a gem.

Given that the piece was not written in the 19th century and thus likely to put off the generally conservative Inverness audience, the turn-out was both respectable and appreciative; with luck it will be enough to encourage the RCS and Scottish Opera to include Eden Court in future collaborations.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2013

Links

• Scottish Opera
• Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

AT A time when our civic authorities, both local and national, are embracing the possibility of change and attempting to plan for and to facilitate a new future then it is to events such as this exhibition that they should look for inspiration, writes George Gunn.

ON THE preview night around 100 people filled the gallery and there was a real sense that here was a project which united the community in common cause with the artists who produced the work.

Detail from work by Aimee Begg

On the walls of the Caithness Horizons gallery hang works of great imagination and colour, and the energy of youth – literally in the case of Aimee Begg’s Moulin Rouge/Madonna-esque theatre designs – leaps off the wall. Here is a fine example of the wit and confidence with materials, colour and form which runs through this exhibition.

There are other, perhaps less successfully realised, designs for restaurant fronts and CD covers, yet there is contained within them the indication of a talent for draughtsmanship most specifically in the conceptualisation of the Japanese pagoda-style designs by Jack Dunnett. It is these glimpses of what is to come from these artists which is the tantalising and exciting element of this exhibition.

Work by Jack Dunnett

The confidence in colour and form and the ability to express it is highlighted in the series of self portraits most notably in the strange feather headed self-vision of Terri McCallum which has an expressive flair and a sure use of colour – all blood splattered and rag doll cheeky confidence.

This is in marked contrast with the haunting work of Charlotte Gordon, where the artist stares wistfully out from a green canvas where the sky is filled with doomed atmospheric gliders. In mood and exposition these two pieces demonstrate that these young artists follow their own path.

Work by Charlotte Gordon

The still life work also displays an ease in the use of colour and technique. Often these are not mere representations and as in the case of the work of Georgia Clyne, where a steel cooking pot and couple of yellow peppers appear to melt before the eye. This is a different vision of reality from the beautifully drawn and mature set of compositions by Nicola Gray where the bottle and onion are most definitely what they appear. There is a certainty to the work which promises much for the future.

Work by Nicola Gray

One has to constantly remind oneself that these artists are, technically, children, and yet it was Picasso who said that all his life he tried to get back to painting as he did when he was a child. On the other hand there are artists here who seem to have skipped childhood. Chloe Marks painting of two boats on a Caithness shore is a vibrant and colourful study of time and place with ominous surging waves and a threatening florescent sky. This is an accomplished piece of work.

Similarly successfully realised but more gently coloured is Ian McPherson’s headland-focused rendering of a beach with an assemblage of stones, rope and blocks – all pale blues and fading yellows. Both these paintings show artists who are at the beginning of an artistic journey which anyone who is interested in the future of painting will follow with interest.

Hat design by Sarah Douglas

There are also fantastic hat creations by Sarah Douglas and Kerri Sim, and the theme of time and clocks is apparent in many of the works on show but most eye-catchingly in the two pieces of assemblage by Rochelle Peat of a fish and a boat, both exquisite, both clocks.

Work by Rochelle Peat

Much emanates, mostly in hot air and policy documents, from central government and the local authority about community art and education and community interface. The Scottish Government and Highland Council should study the work of these young artists and admire and learn from their creativity, flair, imagination and talent.

Their skills are learned. We are fortunate to have teachers who can pass it on. This young artistic energy is the real alternative to the reducing monetarism of the modern state. These young visionaries will, by necessity, design the future so we had better make sure they are properly resourced to do so in the present. They are the future.

Come to Caithness Horizons and see an exhibition which will illuminate for you what exactly alternative energy means.

© George Gunn, 2013

Links

• Caithness Horizons

THE elaborately corniced, portico’d and vaulted hall of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery soars high above row upon row of chairs.

SOLD out for months, tonight the Strathglass Suite is the hottest ticket in rainy Glasgow; extra rows of seating have been squeezed in wherever possible and people are crowding on the balconies above. It’s also being filmed for later transmission on BBC Alba.

Duncan Chisholm (photo John Smith)

No pressure, then, on Duncan Chisholm and his band – Matheu Watson (guitar), Martin O’Neill (bodhran), Jarlath Henderson (pipes and whistles), Ross Hamilton (bass) and the statutory member of the Henderson family, Allan (piano and fiddle).

Accompanying them are a string & brass ensemble conducted by Gary Walker and led by Greg Lawson, known to some from Blazin’ in Beauly but here in his capacity as a freelance classical violinist.

One wonders, idly, what Donald Riddell would have thought, sitting in his croft in Abriachan, of the success enjoyed by his pupils who, as well as Chisholm, include Bruce MacGregor, Iain MacFarlane and Adam Sutherland.

In case you hadn’t noticed (and if you hadn’t, don’t worry, you will), this is the Year of Natural Scotland whose logo flashed up on the screen behind the performers. The Strathglass Suite is Chisholm’s musical tribute to the place of his birth and the home of his ancestors, where the valley of the Glass river widens out between Glen Affric and Aigas. It is drawn from a trilogy of CD releases, recorded over six years, Farrar, Canaich and the most recent, Affric.

Written in the thrall of what the Welsh call ‘hiraeth’, the deep love of one’s homeland, the Strathglass Suite inhabits an area of music thronged with popular favourites like Sibelius’ ‘Finlandia’, Smetana’s ‘Ma Vlast’ and many of the works of Vaughan Williams; on this showing Chisholm’s work is worthy of inclusion in the canon.

The opening notes are played by Jarlath Henderson – is there any sound more wistfully haunting than the Uillean pipes? – before the ensemble join in with some meltingly lovely strings. The suite would be a fine enough piece played only by Chisholm’s selection of traditional musicians, but with the addition of the ensemble’s rich musical textures it becomes a thing of great and lasting beauty.

Scottish Opera’s Stephen Adams has been in charge of the arrangements, which successfully bridge the folk/classical gap, the strings often echoing the cadences of the pipes and not merely framing the folk sections but weaving all the strands together. You can see it’s going well from the grins on the faces of the musicians; even the classical musicians are allowing themselves to tap their feet and nod their heads when the music heads off into the folkosphere.

The audience quickly abandons the stultifying classical convention (only introduced in the Victorian era) of not applauding between sections – to the extent of giving a standing ovation half way through after a fast, furious section driven by the great, lolloping beat of O’Neill’s bodhran.

Yes, the man from Wolfstone can break your heart with a slow air but he also knows how to rock. The barriers between classical and folk have been trampled over and it’s all just music. Things quieten down enough for Allan Macdonald to declaim, in Gaelic, an extract from Neil Munro’s ‘To Exiles’ before the last section, followed by a rapturous repeat of the standing ovation and a final, reprised encore. Magnificent.

Pride of New York, led by Cherish the Ladies’ force of nature, Joanie Madden, had the unenviable position of support band but gradually managed to win the audience over, delivering a knockout blow with an irresistible 400-year old tune on the whistle from Madden. If only the stage had been a little higher, it’d have been possible to see as well as hear them. The sound, too, is against them; Madden’s introductions, like Chisholm’s after her, are almost incomprehensible in the echoing acoustics.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

Duncan Chisholm

Jennie Macfie

FIRST on stage in the vaulted hall at the Glasgow Art Club was folk singer Ian Smith, originally from Kilmarnock but now resident in Donegal.

One self-penned song lamented the decline of his home town’s once vibrant city centre with a sad litany of shops and cafes that are no more. It must be some time since Smith went home as, ironically, on the other side of Scotland at St Andrews, Kilmarnock had just won the major Creative Places Award for 2013 for its transformation of closed retail and industrial premises into ‘thriving arts venues and their year round series of festivals’.

Fiona J. Mackenzie

The biggest of these music festivals is the Kilmarnock Edition, named for the famous 1786 collection of Burns’ poems in the Scots dialect, and one which inspired the name of the second act, a kaleidoscopic assembly of musicians from all sorts of genres who as individual winners of the Burnsong International Songhouse of 2009 were brought under one roof for a week of intensive songwriting collaboration. They’ve continued to make music together ever since, though chances for rehearsal for this far-flung crew, each busy with their own individual careers as singer-songwriters, are few and far between.

As a result their performance isn’t what you might call polished, but amid the gloriously exhilarating con-fusion of musical styles on stage, it simply didn’t matter. Yvonne Lyon, Lisa Rigby and Fiona J Mackenzie’s voices melted together irresistibly in beautiful harmonies strengthened by the warmth of Alex Hodgson’s voice and guitar, Roberto Cassani’s bass and Stuart Clark’s percussion textures. Additional delights were provided by Sarah on fiddle and producer David Lyon on box.

From Latin-y jazz to Gaelic song, from doo-wop to dub beats, it was a rich feast of musical elan. Hodgson’s humourous introductions were only outdone by Cassani. As he said, “My songs sound serious in my head, but when I sing them, people laugh”,and his lament for the angst of empty nest syndrome proved his point; comedy gold.

Dingwall-based Fiona J Mackenzie is the driving force behind the band; amid the cheers and whistles, her soft sweet unaccompanied Gaelic song had the power to hush the audience in seconds. As a complete contrast her paean to the smartphone, or little black box “Bocsaig beag dhu” was foot-tappingly catchy and, as with ‘Pay It Forward’ (the title track of their first album) the audience clapped along without any encouragement. That’s a cast iron indicator of a good gig, and the Kilmarnock Edition is certainly that.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Celtic Connections
• Jennie Macfie

AT Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s birthday party the honour of playing the first notes was given to a native of that well-known Gaelic enclave, California: Dr Decker Forrest, director of the Gaelic Music course and winner of many a close-fought piping competition.

HE also plays one of the most sweetly tuned set of pipes you’ll ever have the pleasure of hearing. Earlier in the day some of his students had delivered a thoroughly professional second half in the Solas ur Tobar an Dualchais concert at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, full of delightful arrangements, solid musicianship and close-knit vocal harmonies but also notable for their calm assurance and stagecraft. They were a real credit to him and their other tutors.

Julie Fowlis

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has been tutoring students full-time for some 30 years. By contrast, the first half of the RCS concert featured the first-ever students of the Applied Music B.A at the University of the Highlands and Islands, a degree course which builds on Sabhal Mor Ostaig’s experience of distance learning. Tutorials are usually in person but if no accessible tutor can be found, Skype allows tuition from as far away, this year, as New York.

There is extraordinary potential for cross-fertilisation among musicians studying variously opera, rock, jazz , traditional Scottish music and everything in between. To start the process the students had been set loose in the treasure house of Tobar an Dualchais to research a piece of music, learn it, work in groups to create a work based on it and then perform it – with the added challenge that the collaboration, apart from the final rehearsals the day before, would take place online.

As Julie Fowlis highlighted in her introduction, the recording of these treasured archive works in the 1930s was due to then-new technology, and now today’s technology is allowing today’s students to revisit their ancestors’ heritage. The wheel turns; this fusion of ancient and modern is the power that fuels many of the finest artists working in Scotland today. The students, tentatively at times, drew on that energy with a programme that consistently challenged expectations.

Unaccompanied Gaelic ensemble singing was augmented by whistling, as though some young blackbird had decided to join in. A charmingly indie-fied version of the ‘Eriskay Love Lilt’ showcased some neat fingerstyle guitar. Banjo duetted with bodhran and flute with accordion. Later, immaculate electric guitar had this reviewer idly wondering what would have happened if Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour had gone to Glasgow School of Art … The lack of live rehearsal time showed in occasional rough edges, but did not tarnish the overall glow.

At Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s birthday party later that night, there were many more demonstrations of experimentation rooted strongly in the tradition. Allan Macdonald of Glenuig opened the second half with a bravura demonstration of what freeform piping, loosed from the bonds of strict military meter, can be. Tightly fingered notes and gracenotes cascaded off the stage and took the audience’s collective breath away.

Julie Fowlis is fast becoming the international face of Gaeldom, but is also a former graduate and postgraduate of Sabhal Mor Ostaig and her rendition of ‘Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach’ showed why. Deceptively simple, the simplicity that stems from dedicated professionalism.

The evening was studded with songs from Margaret Stewart (whose pure, silvery voice outshone even the sparkle of her jewels), James Graham, Alasdair Codona, Mary Ann Kennedy, and Christine Primrose, backed by the House Band, itself not short of formidable names including Iain Macdonald of Glenuig, Alasdair White, and Angus Nicholson, plus members of the Henderson family (musical director Allan and his sister Ingrid) without whom no Highland musical festivity is complete. (There is probably a bye-law to this effect in the depths of Highland Council).

On the tune side, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas are never less than impressive but their dynamic, vibrant performance in the City Halls dazzled. Dàimh stepped up to the mark with their laidback, virtuosity while Fergie MacDonald’s brief turn centre stage demonstrated why he has been a legend since before Sabhal Mòr Ostaig began.

Last but not at all least, Michael O’Súilleabháin, Professor at the University of Limerick, conducted the orchestra of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in some bravura jazz-infused works that highlighted the superb soprano sax-playing of Kenneth Edge, before everyone crowded onstage to uplift their voices in one final anthem.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Celtic Connections
• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig
• Jennie Macfie

ASKED to produce a touring family show – but not a panto –  on a limited budget,  Wildbird’s Chris Lee has come up with an interesting production which is part film, part theatre and part storytelling session.

THE eponymous Dreich House is an ominous baronial pile in a remote, bleak glen where children who are unloved are sent by parents who don’t wish to see them again. Ever. The small print on Dreich House’s brochure promises a money-back guarantee if disappointed.

Rod Morrison in Dreich House (picture by Gary Anthony, courtesy Wildbird and Inverness Courier)

The show features one adult and seven child actors. Never act with children or animals, goes the actors’ adage, and indeed they steal the show effortlessly, especially the enchanting Sophia Woolnough as baby Ollie. This despite the fact that their appearances are all on back-projected film – shot against a green screen at Arts in Motion’s Evanton studio on an unfeasibly tight schedule. The backgrounds were then added in post-production.

Particular commendation for Merle Harbron (Ruby Love) on whose young shoulders the show partly rests. As Ruby Love,  she is entirely believable as the resourceful heroine, long abandoned by self-absorbed filmstar parents, who rescues the others from the clutches of the evil, scheming Lord Boltfast and his henchmen.

Meanwhile the adult inhabits his roles mostly on stage. Rod Morison has an unusually demanding task in theatrical terms; Dreich House is essentially a one-man show with the necessity of generating all the energy entirely alone. However, Morison also has to switch between a host of wildly different personas, from a Hollywood starlet to a slavering bloodthirsty hound, with the added pressure of timing his performance to the back-projected visuals. Morison’s performance has settled down since I saw it earlier in the run and the audience (sadly sparse on a snowy Strathpeffer Monday evening) enjoys the experience. It’s all good, clean, cartoon-ish fun, the only notable drawback being the soundtrack level which occasionally muffles the children’s recorded dialogue.

© Jennie Macfie, 2013

Links

• Wildbird

THIS LATEST exhibition in the IMAG main gallery space presents the opportunity to view some magnificent works from the Scottish figurative tradition, drawn from the Highland Collection held by the Highland Council.

CONSISTING mainly of work by artists from the Highlands of Scotland, the collection reflects acquisitions from temporary touring exhibitions from the 1980’s and 1990’s, supplemented by part of the Scottish Arts Council Collection Bequest when the SAC’s permanent collection was dismantled in 2001. Featured artists include Joyce W Cairns, Ken Currie, Adrian Wisniewski, Heather Wade, Andrew Walker, David Donaldson, Patricia Douthwaite, Margaret Hunter, Calum Colvin and Peter Howson.

Joyce Cairns - Shadows of the Past

Scottish artists have contributed enormously to the figurative tradition in Western Art History and it is wonderful to see some of the greatest exponents of the genre represented in this exhibition. Shadows of the Past (also titled Shadows of the Past, Liberation Ceremony Rennes 1984, oil on panel) by Joyce W Cairns is one of the highlights of the exhibition. Described by the artist as her “first war painting” and inspired by a journey to Brittany where she witnessed the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the liberation of Rennes, Shadows of the Past marks the beginning of an exploration of personal and collective memory which culminated in the artist’s major retrospective War Tourist at the Aberdeen Art Gallery in 2006. In terms of Cairns’ oeuvre this is a significant painting, and the Highland Council are indeed fortunate to hold this work bequeathed from the SAC collection.

The painting draws a powerful link between Scottish figurative art in the 1980’s, German Expressionism and the Naue Sacklichkeit; specifically the paintings of Max Beckman, Otto Dix and George Grosz during the Weimar period in its compression of the figure within the picture plane. Cairns’ uncompromising vision, bold delineation and paint handling are uniquely tempered by an unsettling delicacy. Paint is applied fluidly and scraped or wiped away to allow luminous highlights of ground to emerge, like truth illuminated in darkness.

The depiction of the central female protagonist, a symbol of occupied France, is characterised not by the idea of liberation but collaboration; the choice of palette a distortion of the bright tricolour into steely militaristic blue and deeper hues evocative of caked mud and blood. The overlay of figures is claustrophobic and absolute, a composition of powerful intensity and subtlety, with ghostly elements visible on closer inspection; the childlike face above the woman’s exposed breast, the hand in the right hand corner with a milk jug, part of the genteel ritual of taking tea with the enemy. In the foreground, the female protagonist’s hand reaches for cake offered on a tray by a German soldier, while she gazes absently beyond the picture frame and the contained chaos of war and invasion.

The positioning of gun and bayonet and the immersion of the female figure within the composition achieves a level of psychological violence which is as unflinching as it is humane. Cairns’ great gift is placing the heart of the work within the viewer, causing us to examine our own complicity and vulnerability as human beings. There is care in every brushstroke and in the painstaking inner architecture of the image, characteristic of all the artist’s large scale figurative compositions. Form and feeling are rendered equally, inviting deeper contemplation of the subject.

Unlike the work of Peter Howson, an official war artist in Bosnia whose early work is also featured in the exhibition, Cairns achieves not a shocking display of violence distancing the viewer from the human condition , but a level of emotional gravitas and inner reflection befitting a major artist of consummate skill and insight. The image is of a country despoiled, a commemorative image of complicity and guilt, not just in the context of a single war but for all time. Joyce W Cairns is one of the UK’s greatest living artists and this important work of international significance should be on permanent display in the Highland capital as one of the highlights of the Highland Council collection.

Andrew Walker - The Bishop

Andrew Walker’s The Bishop (Oil on canvas) is a subtle and introspective work of unexpected beauty, echoing early Picasso in its abstracted, planar treatment of the face and body. The central ruffed figure, perched upon a stool with arms folded protectively around his bent legs, occupies a tonally charged space of light and shadow. The face is defined in a few elegantly poised lines, conveying with economy a pervasive mood of contemplation in the ambiguous, Pierrot-like central figure. The darkest shadow behind the figure to the left is almost a presence in itself and the way that the shifting ground pigment is handled adds to the atmosphere of inward deliberation. In a monochrome world warmer flesh tones bind our gaze to the figure, drawing the eye into this intriguing painting of profound stillness.

Heather Wade - In A Spiritual Place

Heather Wade’s beautifully enigmatic In a Spiritual Place (Mixed media on canvas) is a surreal composition of landscape, figure and symbolic still life, rendered in a finely tuned palette of greens, blues and accented flesh tones. The eye is immediately drawn to the central female figure with her head cranked awkwardly to one side, her stance and penetrative gaze evocative of an altered state of consciousness/perception, together with the clear liquefied depiction of three birds in flight to the upper right as archetypal symbols of the spirit. Like the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, Wade’s work is steeped in personal and collective iconography; the feminine vessel held aloft in the palm, the antique statue to the left in cold classical marble contrasted with an earlier cat-like deity depicted on a terracotta plaque beneath, two aspects of sensuality held in the background of the protagonist.

This expansion of self throughout the arrangement and display of objects surrounding the figure is also expressed in the angular shard of mirror, which disrupts the dream-like elevated state of the composition. Wade’s gently articulate palette and rippling brushwork are subtly rendered to great effect, creating a rhythm which is hypnotic, meditative and rather haunting. The juxtaposition of Christian and pagan imagery; the crucifix adorned with bones, the masks of sun and moon, expand our frame of reference in relation to spirituality. This attitude, the freedom for the viewer to make their own connections with Wade’s own personal iconography, together with the piercing, steady gaze of the protagonist infers that “spiritual place” held within the individual.

I Wandered ThroughThe 30’s (Charcoal/ Conte on Paper) is a fine example of Ken Currie’s superb draughtsmanship in heightened chiaroscuro, reflecting his early work on eight panels for the People’s Palace, commissioned for the 200th anniversary of the massacre of Glasgow’s Carlton Weavers. Influenced by the socialist realism of Diego Rivera and the biting social satire of Dix and Grosz as part of the Naue Sachlichkeit in Germany during the rise of Nazism, Currie’s murals contrast with his later intimate, ethereal portraits and larger scale figurative work focusing on human vulnerability, death and decay.

Here the robust rendering of the human figure and sense of forward movement in the crowd present a vigorous image of protest and self-determination. Figures gathered around the fire to warm their hands evoke the plight of the man in the street during the depression era, with reference to the fight against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War in the burning newspaper headline “Aid To Spain”. The mother and child drawn as one embrace together with the central masculine figure of strength and resistance hold the structure of this figurative composition in a great pyramid as a powerful visual expression of political struggle and human aspiration.

Calum Colvin’s Self Portrait (Cibachrome Print) presents a layered image of the subject, the act of seeing and the crafting of visual images typical of the artist. The visual game of exploration suggested by the checkerboard–like floor and the successive layers of print, photograph, mirror, three dimensional still life and stacked canvases as a multidimensional representation of self and creation in black and white tonality. The shaving mirror portrait in the foreground, open book of “truth” and photograph/postcard/billboard “walk a mile in my shoes”, together with a cuckoo clock provide the only accents of colour.

The placement of these elements together with the shifting, elusive nature of the self- portrait as an image of truth and deception create a fascinating and ambiguous comment on existence; “I exist and all that is not. I is mere phenomenon dissolving into phenomenal connections”. Both visual and written text in Colvin’s art provide the opportunity for varied connections to be made in the mind of the viewer, positioning the portrait in relation to ourselves, ideas of self and of seeing- none of which are visually fixed.

With no permanent survey of Visual Art in the Highland capital’s only public museum/gallery space, seeing even a small selection of this work on display is a joy. It is both inspiring and deeply frustrating to see what might form the core of not just a permanent collection invisibly scattered or in storage, but perhaps a future survey and programme of acquisition which places the work of Highland artists in a local, national and international context in a building suited for purpose.

While in a time of austerity this might seem like a distant dream, such investment in cultural infrastructure, which visibly exists in every other Scottish or international city, is an economic necessity, an important educational resource and a measure of worth. If we do not insist on seeing our own visual history consistently represented, we fail to value ourselves, and the image we project to the rest of the world is a great deal poorer. While the process of cataloguing works online is on-going, providing access to collections all over the UK through the BBC/Your Paintings website, doing a search for paintings in the Highland Council collections is arguably no substitute for seeing and engaging with original work presented in context, doubly so in light of the historic denial of that visual history locally and nationally.

A visitor from New York, Barcelona or elsewhere may as well stay at home and play with a mouse because if they came here looking for visual culture in the public domain they would be hard pressed to find anything other than the temporary or tokenistic. This exhibition points powerfully to an alternative and the Exhibitions Unit are to be congratulated on curating such a resoundingly strong show; however, the fact remains that this exhibition exists in a single room for a month and can only be viewed during reduced winter hours from Thursday to Saturday.

The work in this show, together with the current exhibition of contemporary craft and the display of two of Gerald Laing’s sculptures in IMAG’s revamped upper foyer are a step in the right direction. The extraordinary work of artists based in the Highlands and Islands presented here demands a greater expansion of space, time and consideration. What this display of works from the permanent collection highlights is the lack of growth and understanding at civic level that hasn’t significantly altered in the last decade of rapid social change. Visit just about any other city in the world and Visual Art has a presence not on a screen but visibly and physically as a cultural and economic statement of worth. There can be no pride or economic recovery if our greatest cultural assets remain hidden.

© Georgina Coburn, 2013

Links

• IMAG

THE title really does say what this bright, light, winter-solstice show in an Lanntair’s main gallery is about – “the sea that’s within me”.

THE tapestry-maker Fiona Hutchison points out that there is no spot in Scotland more than fifty miles from the sea. But she is also a sailor and therefore one who who has no option but to look closely at the surface of water for clues as to the forces which are acting upon it at any time. A sailing vessel can’t just disregard eddies if forward momentum is to be maintained. And I’d say the subject of this celebratory exhibition is the interplay of warp and weft, seen as cross-currents.

"warp and weft, seen as cross-currents" - work from the exhibition (Ian Stephen)

But the artist, trained as a tapestry weaver, takes her craft into a huge range of variations. Her materials do not simply criss-cross a chosen format but at times seem barely contained within the scheme. You get a sense of energy in all the diverse works. This is an artist who loves her medium as well as her subject. She is inventive in her range of different scales, in presentation and in materials. But restricting the palette to one dominated by the blue-grey-turquoise and whites range, gives a strong sense of unity.

There are two large-scale tapestry works, both of which seem to have found their own dimensions for the subject. One is simply called “wave”, but you get a sense of the sweep of a whole shoreline – the complex geography which results in the shape of a particular wave. It is balanced by another, more conventional woven work, “dark sea”, where wisps of reds suggest the extraordinary force of bright colour you often see in the natural world, shocking and near garish.

Diptych from the exhibition (Ian Stephen)

Elsewhere, several diptychs, sometimes boxed in acrylic glass, house woven objects which give close scrutiny to the results of turmoil in the natural world. There is also a triptych of harmonic pieces but with significant variations between the individual items. “The work is not a literal translation or a representation of the sea but something remembered, a metaphor for our lives.”

So the ‘tapestry” could be only a few inches square and could contain a shard of glass to represent a section of ice-flow. Monofilamemt netting can have a mind and memory of its own and leap into its own shape, known universally by fishermen as “a bundle of bastards”. But Hutchison harnesses phenomena, or rather she observes and represents. She doesn’t fight against the currents.

Floor show (Ian Stephen)

Part of the pleasure in this show is from the musical balance between the elements. The artist brought more work than she hung – the L-shaped gallery does not have the linear space you might think it does, at first glance. Instead, a floor-mounted installation, takes you round the corner. A series of paper scrolls, laid in salt, suggest a Paisley pattern swirl to sweep you through the space. Fiona reported a very good partnership with an Lanntair, in selecting the works and balancing them out.

I might have been tempted to make it a shade more spare still, but on the other hand would have found it difficult to decide which of the treasures to edit out. There is for example a series of five square format open box-frames. Each contains a small tapestry, not quite uniform in size and nowhere near uniform in the orientation of the form within it or in the way the materials comprise a made thing.

This fine winter exhibition is thus its own single tapestry, made out of individual tapestries.

© Ian Stephen, 2013

Links

• An Lanntair
• Fiona Hutchison
• Ian Stephen

BACK in June, former Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat and jazz composer and pianist Bill Wells won the Scottish Album of the Year Award for their debut collaboration, Everything’s Getting Older.

DESCRIBED by judges as “a bruised and beautiful wonder”, the album has won widespread admiration. So it was fortunate indeed to have the opportunity to see the pair perform in Mareel last Saturday night, backed by a three piece band.

Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells

Those of us who attended the concert were fortunate, too, to witness a remarkably mature and entertaining support set from 16-year-old Hannah Hastings. Not so long ago, Shetland suffered from a disappointing lack of singer-songwriters, and it is a relief to see this is now beginning to change.

Lyrically and melodically, Hastings was engaging from start to finish, with superb vocal control to boot. She also seemed confident and entirely natural on stage, and was funny with it. “That song made me sound like a dirty feminist”, she quipped, after one particularly challenging number. A laugh from the audience was accompanied by an approving shout: “Good!”

I’m looking forward to hearing more from this young and very talented songwriter in the future.

The success of Everything’s Getting Older is undoubtedly a triumph of content over style. As they shuffled onstage, Aidan Moffat, Bill Wells and band looked as though they might have slept in their clothes the previous night, or perhaps not even slept at all. Rough and shambolic in appearance, the restrained beauty of their performance was made all the more entrancing.

Bill Wells piano was subtle and sweet, holding the music together without ever seeming too dominant. The mute trumpet, violin, double bass and bare bones drum kit all weaved their way through the songs, always adding something, yet never more than necessary.

But it was Aidan Moffat’s vocals that really stood out, bringing richness and depth to the laid back, jazzy sound. Both in the spoken word numbers and when singing, Moffat was captivating – the audience held by every line. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes downright filthy, Moffat is a superb lyricist, able to capture wonderfully a kind of brutal, ordinary beauty, and a tenderness laced with loss. His narratives are astute and honest.

The evening’s highlights for me included ‘Box It Up’ – a truly moving love song, tainted by infidelity – and ‘The Copper Top’, set in “the nearest pub to the crematorium”, whose “once brilliant copper roof has oxidised over the years to a dull, pastel green.” Unable to fully distract himself with alcohol from the funeral he has just left behind, Moffat gazes up at that roof and observes, brilliantly, that “Everything’s getting older”.

Yet throughout the set there are glimpses of light – a fragile positivity that sits perfectly alongside the darker subject matter. An appreciation of beauty and of love, Moffat seems to recognise, requires an equal and opposite appreciation of mortality.

In the night’s encore, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’, the singer directs his words towards a child, offering this advice: “You see, we’re all just links in a chain / and all life is finite / so use your time wisely / look after your teeth / and try not to hurt anyone. / And remember, we invented love / and that’s the greatest story ever told.”

Wise words, indeed.

© Malachy Tallack, 2012

Links

• Aidan Moffat
• Malachy Tallack

THE SCOTTISH Ensemble made a welcome return to Inverness Cathedral as a venue for their annual candlelit concert with a programme exploring the deceptively simple concept of variations.

WORKS by contemporary British composer Martin Suckling, Benjamin Britten and JS Bach resonated with each other beautifully in a programme that took the audience from unfamiliar territory to an experience of the sublime.

Jonathan Morton (photo Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground-Postcard #2 draws inspiration from the aural ground of the oldest form of music making. The second in a series of Musical Postcards by Martin Suckling, created and receiving their world premieres during the Scottish Ensemble’s 2012/13 season, this work inspires curiosity in its treatment of form and in the relationships drawn between accompanying works in the programme. Suckling scores the traditional ground bass line for first violin as a circular structural element, underpinning a series of variations where silence, compressed and expanded fragments of musical time are utilised to deliver a four minute work of unexpected texture, economy and complexity.

There is a degree of playfulness with the element of time in this composition which inspires contemplation, in relation to the programme as a whole and with the idea of timeless musical form; Bach’s definitive variations inspiring subsequent generations of composers including Britten and Suckling himself. This work also feels very much about the “ground” of the soloist, the Ensemble’s Artistic Director Jonathan Morton; the spirit of exploration of musical form in the commissioning of new work, the dynamic juxtaposition of works from all periods of music as variations of human expression through time and each performance as an exciting and uniquely nuanced variation of the original composition.

In many ways it is Britten’s tribute to creative leadership expanded and an innovative exploration of the variation with long rests, allowing each musical statement imaginative pause in the mind of the listener. The experience of music as a wellspring for the composer, performing musicians and audience is beautifully articulated by this abstract work, obliquely referencing the musical canon whilst expanding our idea of musical variations. Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground-Postcard #2 contrasts wonderfully with the beguiling lyricism and dissonant intensity of the composer’s first Musical Postcard, In Memorium EMS, performed as part of the Ensemble’s Illuminations concert tour in October, and I am sure I am not alone in eagerly anticipating his next correspondence. These newly commissioned works present a fascinating dialogue between composers past and present, selected works within each concert programme and the unique qualities of soloist and ensemble; reinterpreting and rejuvenating our live experience of historical and contemporary repertoire.

Written when Benjamin Britten was 24 and composed as a tribute to his teacher and “musical father”, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937) expands beyond personal reference in its exploration of musical form and texture. Composing a series of 10 variations on an Introduction and Theme drawn from one of Bridge’s String Quartets, Britten reflects facets of his mentor’s personality whilst transforming the range and scope of his own music. There are times when the string ensemble feels like a full symphonic orchestra, a combination of Britten’s spirited writing and the Scottish Ensemble’s superbly unified playing.

This unity and poise brought each contrasting variation to life in all its richness, drama and delicacy; the lush sonorous layers of ‘Variation 8, Funeral March’, for example, followed by ‘Variation 9, Chant’, with its atmospheric, pizzicato tension in the strings and heightened variant pitch, released like sound above and below a waterline of consciousness. The journey through this work was all the more rewarding due to its juxtaposition with the Suckling’s musical postcard and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, with the influence of each consecutive work shedding light on the next, interestingly in a reverse historical timeline of performance.

Originally written for harpsichord and one of the most influential and best loved works in the history of Western music, JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741, arr. Sitkovetsky 1992) brought heightened closure to the evening. Bach’s aria and 30 variations unfurl in infinite variety through bass line and harmonic progressions that instil a sense of grand design; an interior directive in musical form elevating the spirit. At the core of this performance and within the spiritual trajectory of the surrounding architecture, sound seemed to touch every stone and pane of glass, filling the entire space and the soul of the listener with ultimate serenity.

Jonathan Morton’s magnificent solo performance was full of grace and reverie, supported by the strength of the entire ensemble in a taut and dynamic performance of a work heard many times before but perhaps not understood until that live moment of musical time. The Neo-Gothic structure and its acoustics also contributed to the idea of variation in performance; in the depth of the lower strings resonating in the body of the church and of the listener and in the purity of the solo violin heard in the ‘Aria’ as the thematic alpha and omega of the composition. The most divine quality of art or music is arguably its capacity to alter our perception and the ability to present familiar work in such a way is an absolute gift.

The Scottish Ensemble’s exploration of variations encompassed not just repetition but transformation through patterns within music. The performance enabled the capacity audience to transcend the cold night and hard pews in an immediate and sublime live experience, the three contrasting works variations of timeless human expression entwined and expanded in the mind’s eye.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

Links

• Scottish Ensemble

ON the first preview performance, the audience entered on an ordinary winter’s evening and left, so I’m told, to see the first snowfall of the season. We knew the Pitlochry technical team were good, but choreographing the weather is something else.

BY the time I get there on the press night, the snow is lying thick on the ground and it’s impossible to think of a seasonal show better pitched at the Pitlochry audience. For the theatre’s third ever Christmas production, artistic director John Durnin has capitalised on the recent success of his summer musicals and fielded a bright and breezy backstage romance that feels just right for the time of year, despite lacking even the merest hint of panto.

White Christmas - Simon Coulthard, Grant Neal and ensemble

By Durnin’s own admission, White Christmas is not the most sophisticated of stories. Based on the Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye movie of 1954, it is about the generation of American men who had to find their feet back home after serving in the second world war. While Vermont hotelier General Henry Waverly (James Smillie) struggles to adjust to civilian life without a battalion to command, his former army entertainers Bob Wallace and Phil Davis (Grant Neil and Simon Coulthard) respond in their contrasting ways to the sudden availability of adoring female fans.

The narrative requires only that Waverly comes to terms with his retirement, Davis settles down with a steady girl and Wallace finds true love after a misunderstanding. By the time the three strands come together, just before the curtain goes up on the closing concert, you get the impression even the writers have lost interest. All they ever needed was a framework to hang Irving Berlin’s fabulous songs on. The story is just an excuse.

And I doubt anyone’s complaining. From the moment Hilary Brooks’s ten-strong band strikes up, this is a big crowd-pleaser of a show. With no ambition to change the world, it’s an uncomplicated celebration of ensemble dance and pre-rock’n’roll popular song. And what songs! White Christmas . . . Sisters . . . How Deep Is the Ocean . . . they just keep on coming.

Some of the acting is less persuasive than the singing and, by going for a more generic West End-style cast, Durnin loses the quirky individuality that has distinguished some Pitlochry musicals. But Martine McMenemy and Grant Neal make adorable romantic leads, choreographer Chris Stuart-Wilson keeps the movement brisk and entertaining, and the whole show sends the audience home with a happy festive buzz.

© Mark Fisher, 2012

Links

• Pitlochry Festival Theatre
• Mark Fisher

OUTSIDE the temperature was biting at minus 3 but inside Findhorn’s Universal Hall it was a warm and convivial crowd to welcome respected duo Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas.

THE packed hall reflected the appeal of the duo and with a recently released new album, Highlander’s Farewell, and a promise to be back in Scotland for Celtic Connections in January, including a strings workshop, Scots born fiddler Alasdair and American cellist Natalie weren’t ones to disappoint.

Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas

The new album provided a number of traditional tunes for the Universal Hall gig, including the poignant and passionate title track which melds old with new through a medley of ‘Highlander’s Farewell to Ireland’, ‘O’er the water to Charlie’ and ‘Highlander’s Farewell’ mixing strathspey, reel and jig with some spicy Appalachian seasoning.

Duncan Chisholm’s ‘The Farley Bridge’, a sweeping and sweet melody, perfectly symbolised the vigorous relationship between past and present and highlighted the rich vitality of contemporary tunes. This fluidity marks the best of Fraser and Haas’s talents. As Alasdair stated, if Neil Gow had stayed with the old tunes he’d have little to play, and it is in this spirit of exploration and respect for the past which the duo celebrate.

Similarly the joyous and lively ‘The Referendum’, a new tune in honour of Alec Salmond’s attendance at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye, flawlessly captured the sense of questioning surrounding that significant issue. Fraser’s opinion on the matter was evidently on show when he suggested the piece should be played “optimistically”.

A few personal tunes mixed with some traditional favourites, inspired by friends and family, followed including ‘Glenfinnan Nights’ written on a drive through Glencoe which swiftly swayed into ‘Tibbie Fowler O’ The Glen’. New tune (only around 3 week’s old!) the ‘Connie Muir Suite’ blended reel, jog, waltz and strathspey in an atmospheric and charming tribute to a close friend. Howie Muir, Connie’s husband, also provided the inspiration for the rhythmic ‘Ouagadougou Boogie’ a feisty and funky invitation to dance.

A series of old tunes, reels and strathspeys concluded the gig including ‘The Pitnacree Ferryman’, ‘The Smiths a Gallant Fireman’ and ‘Crossing the Minch’ before the audience, all on their feet and a good number dancing away on the floor, accompanied the duo on ‘Kelburn Brewer’ as Alasdair and his fiddle bopped through the energetic crowd.

The always eloquent Alasdair proved an entertaining host and the joy between both musicians was palpable and infectious; Natalie’s smiles and Alasdair’s nifty footwork were testament to the delight and talent of two musicians simply enjoying playing music together. It was clear the duo were happy to be back in Findhorn; as Alasdair noted, as they drove through Spey country to the gig, every signpost suggested a fiddle tune.

The duet between instruments, combined with an abundant synthesis of funk, jazz, classical and trad rhythms was a heady but delightful mix. Articulate, skilled and engaging Fraser and Haas superbly demonstrated the beguiling connection between fiddle and cello and an enchanting evening was had by all. Once again Universal Hall should be praised for its fine acoustics and relaxed atmosphere, as Alasdair noted it’s a “grand place for a gathering” and I couldn’t agree more.

© Billy Rough, 2012

Links

• Universal Hall
• Celtic Connections
• Alasdair Fraser
• Natalie Haas

THE FIRST weekend in December starts with mulled wine in a boat store and ends with curry and malt whisky in Resolis.

IN BETWEEN there are screenings of an eclectic selection of films, so eclectic it’s hard to pick out a common thread. Not so surprising when you see who’s chosen them – this year the guests are a human rights lawyer turned screenwriter (Paul Laverty), a comedian who’s also an author (Rhona Cameron), a fireman turned horologist and automata expert (Michael Start) and an armourer (Carl Summersgill).

Zeffirelli's La Traviata

The guest whose screenings sold out in a matter of minutes, however, is that national icon of tea-drinking, pipe-smoking and political integrity, hereditary peer turned Labour politician, Tony Benn. Or ‘God’, as director Don Coutts calls him.

He’s here to talk about the documentary film of his life story, currently in production, entitled Last Will and Testament, of which an extended trailer has been made exclusively for the Festival. It’s screened again the following morning, introduced by its producer, Sanjay Kumar; it’s already plain this is going to be an inspiring and, judging by the surreptitious deployment of handkerchiefs, moving account of someone once described as “the most dangerous man in Britain”. “I got a death threat the other day”, he confides cheerfully. “I hadn’t had one for ages – I was so chuffed’.

Benn’s words have a ringing clarity that is generally lacking in today’s carefully groomed and focus-grouped politicians. He walks through a room that symbolises his life and reminisces about discovering that ‘being in government is not about changing things but about running the system better’. Unforgettable.

Michael Start's Maraccas Monkey and a head from Hugo (Jennie Macfie)

But this film festival is as full of unforgettable moments as a Christmas pudding is full of dried fruit. The workshops by masters of their craft are enthralling glimpses behind the curtain – who could fail to be beguiled by Michael Start’s antique automata? The cat that shines boots, the maraccas monkey, the rabbit in the cabbage and the tiny feathered singing bird in a silver snuffbox outshine even his tales of working for Scorsese on Hugo .

This year for the first time the Screen Machine has rolled up to Cromarty as a venue. It’s a big lorry which expands, Tardis-lke, into a small but comfortable screening room and every year brings film to communities across the outer reaches of the Highlands and Islands, tens or hundreds of miles from the nearest cinema.

On Friday night it’s sold out for Benn and for his choice, Brassed Off‘, and nearly full for the late nighter, The Woman in Black. Beyond the queues outside waiting to buy their popcorn are the lights of oilrigs in the Cromarty Firth. Meanwhile, just around the corner, short films are screening on the curved tower of the Cromarty Lighthouse, their reflections flickering on the rain slicked street. You just don’t get this in Cannes, or Sundance…

Archive screenings at the Old Brewery (Jennie Macfie)

The other venues are even more atmospheric. The Festival Hub at the Old Brewery has a large-ish room upstairs where the projector is ingeniously and effectively slung from the roof beams in a supermarket shopping basket. It becomes a time machine as archive films reveal a time when heavy horses pulled milk carts through the cobbled streets of Edinburgh and the tones of Harry Enfield’s Mr Chumleigh-Warner were commonplace.

Scottish ‘couthy films’ are screened inside tiny local restaurant Sutor Creek, and the old Stables up the hill shows films as diverse as Zefffirelli’s luscious, extravagant La Traviata and the 2012 remake of Clash of the Titans (its armourer, Carl Summersgill, lets pre-film workshop attenders wield a real sword).

The grand finale in Resolis Hall sold out nearly as quickly as Tony Benn’s event. A screening of Ken Loach’s The Angel’s Share, partly set in the Balblair distillery, a long term supporter of the festival, is, after curry from Gabi’s in Avoch and a raffle drawn by Rhona Cameron, introduced by its writer, Paul Laverty. He closes with a salute to the Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, banned and imprisoned purely because his work does not please his government; the audience raises a toast to Panahi in Balblair ’02. It’s a typically Cromarty Film Festival moment, a mashup of wildly contrasting cultures that works, because it all comes from the heart.

© Jennie Macfie, 2012

Links

• Cromarty Film Festival

CHRISTMAS 2012 at Kilomorack Gallery combines the work of established and emerging new artists.

EXHIBITING artists include Gerald Laing, Eugenia Vronskaya, Helen Denerley, Peter White, Christine Woodside, Illona Morrice, Laurence Broderick, Jane MacNeill, Kirstie Cohen, Patricia Cain, Sarah Carrington, Sam Cartman, Helen Fay, Lotte Glob, Helen Glassford, Allan MacDonald, Alan MacDonald, Henry Fraser and Madeline MacKay, with the range of work spanning the decorative to the transcendental.

Allan MacDonald - Scots Pine and Winter Squall

Allan MacDonald’s Scots Pine and Winter Squall (Oil on Board) is a wonderful example of the artist’s understanding of northern light and fluid handling of oils. The beautifully nuanced tonality and luminosity of snow is balanced with the warmth and wild movement of russet branches, swept by winter gales. An intensely subtle palette, together with patterns of light on the bark, foreground and breaking light in the animated sky, create an image of beauty and power in nature. The lone figure of the Scot’s Pine as an image of resilience at one with the environment is potently human and characteristic of the way that MacDonald’s landscape works embody a human mind perceiving the landscape rather than a scenic view.

The artist’s physical engagement with the natural world together with his exploration of the art of painting defines his technique, further distilled by contemplation of the divine in nature. MacDonald’s brush work directs the viewer into the rhythm at the core of the image; his considered use of colour in accents of yellow and red is more intensely felt because used sparingly, in vibrant contrast to the prevailing atmosphere of the season. This insistence on the presence of light in darkness and its elusive quality is the challenge and joy of painting, consistently present in MacDonald’s work. Featured as part of the Kilmorack Northern Exposure showcase at the Caledonian Club, London and exhibiting last month at the 2012 Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, where he was awarded the DE Chairman’s Purchase Prize and the Scotland Regional Prize, Allan MacDonald continues to be one of the foremost exponents of landscape painting in the UK precisely because he transcends the limitations of the genre.

Madeleine McKay - Caol

Madeline MacKay’s original prints are a striking addition to the gallery. Selected for the RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition (April/May 2013) and a recent graduate in BA (Hons) Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, MacKay’s technical skill and treatment of subject present a fascinating investigation of the relationships between her ornithological subjects, human kind and environment. Caol (Collograph) exemplifies the artist’s layered treatment of the subject in the figure of a cormorant, its finely drawn articulated neck, akin to the calligraphic spontaneity of the artist’s ink drawings, tempered with shifting elements from the landscape itself.

Born in Northern Ireland and growing up in Caithness, MacKay’s approach to her subject feels further distilled in the more abstract Shale (Etching), possessing and expansive presence drawn directly from the Northern landscape. The artist’s land works display an affinity with the earliest cave paintings in the immediacy of drawn marks on stone and allude to indigenous understanding and interaction with the natural world. The delicacy of these images, the artist’s care and deliberation are very promising indeed.

Henry Fraser - Portrait of an Artist

Henry Fraser’s Portrait of an Artist (Acrylic on Board) presents an intriguing universal portrait emerging from a textured, earthy ground, scarred with drawn marks. Hands are clasped expectantly in front of the figure, collaged newsprint with the word “mapping” defining the arm, the printed cheek and face bisected by brilliant red in contrast to fine splatter and softer tones of pink, turquoise, yellow, peach and blue within the outline of the body. The strong linear definition of the face in naïve black together with intense shining eyes create a child-like presence with a depth of consciousness conveyed in the pupils like wells of experience. The individuality of the figure as inspiration also creates a universal dynamic of innocence and experience with collaged elements and variation of paint handling creating layers of potential interpretation within the work.

The larger scale work Tribe, a bold procession of figures on a vivid ground of blue alludes to conformity in its use of chalkboard black and white to define the human figure; identification and belonging seemingly taught. The rendering of the figure is deceptively simple and like all of Fraser’s work, abstraction serves a psychologically complex and expressive purpose.

Eugenie Vronskaya - Inverness Light

A work of suitable scale befitting the artist’s talent, Eugenia Vronskaya’s Inverness Light (Oil on Canvas) displays her adept handling of the medium in a play of light, form and colour that make an adjacent suite of Edinburgh city scenes seem pale by comparison. This is an image of a city that feels more like a safe harbour in great curvature of the bridge in the foreground, echoing the organic form of shadowy mountains and shifting cloud in blues, greens, yellow and ochre. It is an image of nature and burgeoning urbanity, a lone figure on the bridge the only human presence to be seen amongst a townscape of church spires infused with light, the River Ness brought to life in areas of white ground animated by Vronskaya’s confidently vibrant brushstrokes.

This painterly, energetic response is in sharp contrast to the Edinburgh scenes which by their nature exhibit none of the essential energy manifest in Inverness Light: a dynamic between man-made structures and nature’s elements. The element of light in Vronskaya’s best work arguably presents itself as an agent of contemplation whether in still life, portraiture, landscape or cityscape works; as much an investment in the art of painting as it is a compelling investigation of the chosen subject.

Alan MacDonald’s A Song to the Sea (Oil on Board) display’s the artist’s wit and precision in a finely executed painting of a woman in profile painted in the manner of an Old Master, open mouthed with a packet of Fisherman’s Friend lozenges beneath. This juxtaposition of popular culture and visual literacy characterises the artist’s work presenting, particularly in larger scale works, a labyrinth of references and internal connections; intuitive, cerebral, insightful, poignant and humorous.

Alan MacDonald - The Carriage of Figaro

The Carriage of Figaro (Oil on Board) is a fine example, as much a proposition as it is a painting, a delightfully ambiguous arrangement of truth and contradiction. The elongated landscape composition with golden popular song lyric text beneath inform the visual narrative, defining the relationship between a man and a woman; he in a ruff collar and black robe, she naked, apart from pearls in her hair and around her ankles. The “carriage” a play on the operatic marriage title is a lowly wooden palette, theatrically adorned with drapery, rapidly spinning wheels adding a dimension of surreality to an eternally fixed scene. The female figure is coquettishly arranged for visual display, hand on hip, toying with her hair, her leg extended with a golden rope tied to her toe, pulled in tension beyond the picture plane and counterbalanced by a ballast of weight behind the carriage, tethering it like the viewer’s gaze. The landscape beyond is steeped in shadow, fluidly painted trees and semi industrial buildings, out of time with the dress of the central protagonists.

The mysterious complexity of visual and written text contains a myriad of clues to the game and simultaneously universal identification with the human element within the work; conventions, behaviours and constraints. It is this tension and the clarity of MacDonald’s paint handling that are so completely beguiling, an invitation to unravel the riddle of the image and of ourselves in the process. MacDonald’s work is a dance, a negotiation and a theatrical play on text and image, uniquely reformed, visually potent and invigoratingly fresh.

Arguably the strongest works in the exhibition give the audience the gift of expanded perception sharing a commitment to the artist’s chosen medium and a desire to initiate a world of thought and imagination in the act of seeing.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

Links

• Kilmorack Gallery

TORE Gallery’s latest exhibition marks both an ending and a beginning.

FOLLOWING this Christmas exhibition the gallery will close its doors after nine years, allowing owner/artist Clare Blois time and space to focus exclusively on her own work. As part of a spectrum of private local galleries catering to different needs in the Highlands it is sure to be missed, both as an exhibition and concert venue.

Denise Davis - Greenfinch

However, the gallery will retain an online presence with a co-operative of selected artists and it will be exciting to see the trajectory of Blois’s own work with a new chapter of her practice beginning. In reflecting on the context and successes of the gallery, Blois commented on how Tore had “filled a gap” in responding to a need within the local art scene and how it “would leave a gap”; in its commitment to show work by artists who didn’t have an outlet elsewhere, to support local artists at different stages of development and to encourage the buying of art; offering affordable pieces minus the intimidation often felt in private gallery spaces.

Although solo statements often become obscured in an environment crammed with creative offerings there is typically some strong work featured in this final show, which includes work by David Body, Miriam Smith, Suzanne Gyseman, Gillian Pattinson, Helen Robertson, Janis Fleming, Christine O’Keefe, Kitty Watt, Isabell Dickson, Ben Southern, John Nicholson, Linda Smith, Margaret Cowie, Frances Baxter and many others.

Denise Davis’s magnificent flights in abstraction, Greenfinches I and II (Acrylic), display the delicacy and strength of drawn marks together with a dynamic palette of contrasting acidic green and red in two striking vertical compositions. Her visceral treatment of the figure and exploration of the picture plane are brought convincingly to bear in these works; colour and mark beautifully balanced with signature energy and poise. At its best the integrity of the artist’s work resoundingly shines through, driven equally by response to the subject through abstraction and grappling with the chosen medium.

Abstraction (Hen) is another fine example; a composition of white, brown, cadmium red, black and grey that feels stripped to its bones, the artist actively exploring plastic elements in the crafting of the image together with psychological and emotional weight of raw pigment and associative form. Davis’s paintings have a distinct sculptural quality that together with her unflinching pursuit of the human mark sets her work apart from the regional obsession with pictorial landscape.

Michael Stuart Green - In Redcastle Woods

Michael Stuart Green’s command of traditional and digital printmaking techniques have consistently featured at Tore and his layered treatment of colour, form and design are beautifully represented by Red Castle 1(Lino cut 1/6), a superb composition of sky, stone and foliage in russet, orange, pink, cream and green.

In Red Castle Woods (Lino cut 1/5) the progression of colour and tone elevates the viewer’s experience of an image bursting with light and life. The successive layering of acidic yellow and green against the blue/ black undergrowth reaching heightened tonality at the top of the image, lead the eye and mind into the work in a similar way to the shining path in the foreground. Stuart Green presents the viewer not just with a scene of a wood but the possibility of a state of being in relation to it. The construction of the image and the artist’s technical ability bears a direct relationship to the depth of experience offered by the subject within the picture plane.

Ronald Lawson’s watercolours Boreray and the Stacks and Lochmaddy, North Uist are striking in their technique; the first in its skilful striation of rock and the textural treatment of a thin band of steely blue ocean, which almost feels like collage or a layer of print process, and the second in its depiction of a great immovable sky of planar grey, the boldly defined low roof and horizon contrasted with feathered edges of thatch. The juxtaposition of detail and definition are a wonderful combination however the reverse of this display reveals a formulaic approach to subject and perhaps a fortuitous warning that the artist should let process lead in the future development of his work.

Clare Blois - Bright Fields Late Summer

Having recently exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London as part of the Discerning Eye Exhibition 2012, it is pleasing to see Clare Blois’s work featured in this final show. Bright Fields Late Summer (Oil) with its vibrant palette of layered impasto in yellow, blues and greens, accented with red and orange, draws the eye into the curvature of the field in a sweep of colour and energetic brushstrokes. It is a joyous evocation of the season in its final moments and an exciting precursor for work to come.

Blois has contributed significantly to the local arts community in her management of Tore Gallery as a venue supporting recreational, semi-professional and professional artists. The final concert event on Sunday 9th December with James Ross, Musick Fyne and The Marvel of Peru is an apt celebration of the venue which will hopefully continue to be utilised for arts events in the future.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

Links

• Tore Gallery

FINDHORN’S Universal Hall was the settingfor Gaelic ‘supergroup’ Dàimh’s to launch their Ho ho ho-ro Gheallaidh’s tour.

DESCRIBED as bringing “seasonal cheer with Hymns, Carols, songs and tunes connected with Christmas, New year and Midwinter” it was certainly a night to warm the oncoming cold winter months.

Dàimh

The band – Ross Martin (guitar), Damian Helliwell (banjo and mandolin), Gabe McVarrish (fiddle) and Angus MacKenzie (pipes and whistle) – were welcomed onstage with a couple of special guests for the evening; renowned Gaelic singer Margaret Stewart and Malinky’s very own Steve Byrne. Future gigs promise guests from an equally impressive list; Kathleen MacInnes, Arthur Cormack & Griogair Ladhruibh, Calum Alex and Seonaidh MacMillan and Griogair Ladhruibh.

One of the problems of focusing on Christmas and the winter holidays, as Dàimh noted, is that there is very little traditional Scottish Christmas songs. As Christmas was generally treated as a working day the songs tended to focus more on the New Year celebrations. Equally, Scottish tunes are known to focus on the darker side of life, so stories of dead wrens and cheating lovers seemed to feature heavily throughout the set but that didn’t stop the boys finding some beautifully festive jigs and reels.

The gig started off with a spirited version of the English Carol ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ before settling into a number of Irish reels, including ‘Christmas Eve’ and ‘New Year’s Day’ before Steve joined them with some East Coast tracks, including an atmospheric rendition of the 16th century song ‘Balulalow’ as collected by Dundee’s Wedderburn brothers.

A few feisty polkas followed before Margaret joined the group for the evocative ‘Tha Sneachd’ Air Druim Uachdair’ (‘Snow on Drumochter’). The first half concluded with a fine set of Shetland tunes; the gentle ‘Christmas Day Ida Morning’ was followed by a pacey ‘Da Cold Nights of Winter’ before setting on an almost rocky tune inspired by the island’s tradition of the Skekklers.

Maybe it was because it was still relatively early in the festive season, but the Findhorn audience were a little subdued during the first half, and Dàimh as a band a little reserved (only Steve was game to wear the Christmas paper hat) but after a short break Margaret took the stage for a solo spot delivering a moving Gaelic version of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ which firmly established a festive spirit and the boys relaxed with some humorous banter.

The set list returned to Ireland for ‘The Mummers Jig’ which incorporated a number of tunes including ‘Robin’s Nest’, ‘Drops of Brandy’ and ‘The Humours of Whiskey’ before heading of to Northumberland for the reflective ‘The Midwinter Waltz’. Steve delivered a beautiful bothy ballad solo of Kirriemuir poet Violet Jacob’s ‘Hogmanay’ before joining the boys on a lively version of ‘Queen Mary’s Men’ and a set of warming strathspeys. The night wouldn’t be complete without it and the group came back on stage for an encore of the ‘Auld Lang Syne and a pipe-led version of ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’.

‘Ho ho ho-ro Gheallaidh’ is still to tour Banchory, Skye, Stornoway, Peebles and Castle Douglas so if you are looking for a night of festive tunes and good craic then there is still time to catch the boys and their guests in the run up to Christmas.

© Billy Rough, 2012

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• Dàimh

NO ROOM for a wren in the OneTouch tonight – every seat is full of people who have travelled from far and near to listen to this unassuming woman on stage.

KARINE Polwart is not a mistress of the slick little segue, as she confides while wrestling for the first but not the last time with a microphone stand. But in song after skilfully crafted, beautiful song she makes hundreds of people feel as though they’re sitting round her kitchen table and sharing her life. ‘Sticks and Stones’ is a hymn to home, ‘Tinsel Show’ is a child’s view of Grangemouth and ‘Don’t Worry’ is an intimate glimpse of domesticity, while ‘Salter’s Road’ is a heartstring-tugging celebration of an old neighbour.

Karine Polwart (photograph by Eamonn McGoldrick)

Countless female singer-songwriters have been compared to Joni Mitchell, usually without coming close. Polwart is that rare thing, a true contender. She fuses poetry and melody to paint vivid pictures that embed themselves in your heart, heir to the anonymous ballad-singers of centuries past.

In this subtle alchemy she is aided by her brother Steven, who as well as periodically rescuing her from the microphone stand contributes a steady presence and a solid foundation of guitar and vocals. Her other collaborator is Fair Isle’s Inge Thomson. Thomson is an accordionist and the owner of one of the most haunting voices in the world of traditional music, who also has the ear of a producer for detail and texture. Throughout the evening her light touch with percussion creates magic. One of the highlights of the second half is her solo performance of her cousin Lise Sinclair’s ‘Gest’s Ee’ from the magnificent, underrated CD Ivver Entrancin Wis. Thomson makes it even more eldritch and darker, like a storm cloud threatening on the far horizon.

Most of the evening’s set list is taken from the new CD, Traces, which is one of Polwart’s three (count ’em) nominations in Radio 2 Folk Awards 2013. Characteristically, when she finally thinks to mention this, she makes as heartfelt a plea for two other nominations for Best Album as for her own (Lau’s Race the Loser and Sam Lee’s Ground of Its Own, since you ask).

Nominated for Best Original Song, ‘King of Birds’ is deceptively simple, interweaving the ancient tale of the tiny, wily wren with the eponymous architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, and bringing in the Great Fire of London, the Blitz and the Occupy movement – in three verses, with space to breathe.

The audience stamps, roars and whistles its demand for an encore which, after a brief foray into ‘Space Oddity’ , turns into ‘Follow the Heron’, one last chance to appreciate this rare talent.

© Jennie Macfie, 2012

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• Karine Polwart
• Jennie Macfie

TRYING to put a finger on why there has been such an explosion of new arts ventures arriving on the Highland scene over the past few years is a near impossible task.

BLOWING our own trumpet, the start-up of Hi-Arts and with it Northings has obviously been influential in making the population more aware of how the arts can enrich life. A period of European Union Objective One Development Status, Inverness being awarded city status, the appearance of a wave of community halls to mark the Millennium, all have helped to promote The Highlands as a desirable place to live.

Troilus Ensemble (photo Bob Dunsmore)

Ironically, while Eden Court was dark for extension and refurbishment, the “In Exile” programme opened up previously unused venues for smaller scale arts events all across the region, and these venues have been providing the birthing pools for these new arts ventures.

The most recent new arrival to enrich our lives is the Troilus Ensemble, a group of twenty-one professional and semi-professional singers brought together and trained by Reno Troilus, the countertenor who, with his wife Gail, settled in the Highlands four years ago as the ideal place to raise their family. The Ensemble has just presented its debut series and attracted a respectable audience of around one hundred for this performance in Inverness Town House.

Opening the concert was the beautiful Miserere by Gregorio Allegri, based on Psalm 51. It is a piece testing every voice in the range, especially the lead soprano who has to soar to top C several times. The Miserere was composed in the first half of the 17th century to be sung during Holy Week each year in the Sistine Chapel – and nowhere else, with the score being one of the most jealously guarded treasures of the Vatican library. However in 1770, the young Mozart heard it being sung, went home and wrote out all the parts with complete accuracy. Since then it has become a stalwart of the choral repertoire, and it enabled the members of the Troilus Ensemble to demonstrate all their a capella skills and the amount of hard work that they had put in.

It was the most substantial of the ten works that made up this debut programme as Reno Troilus took us all the way from the baroque period right up to the end of the 20th century and just into the 21st.

Next up was the soprano showpiece ‘Laudate Dominum’ from Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, K339, giving Kathleen Cronie a strong solo before the other members of the Ensemble joined her to bring the piece to its emotionally powerful close. Ständchen, or Serenade, by Schubert comes in a choice of three versions, all different and well-known, but Reno Troilus opted for the D920 lied for mezzo and male chorus. It was well sung, although a little more animation would not have gone amiss. After all, this is a song about a girl approaching her lover’s room!

Gabriel Fauré’s contributions to the evening were a pair of contrasting pieces, both fairly early works from his oeuvre. His Cantique de Jean Racine was a delightful but gentle crescendo by the full ensemble that was Fauré’s arrangement of Racine’s paraphrase of a traditional French hymn from the 17th century. Equally gentle but more passionate was Après un Rêve, as the solo soprano awakes from dreaming of her lover and calls on night to return so that she can dream some more.

The last work before the programme moved into the 20th century was the first of Brahms Op 104 partsongs for unaccompanied mixed choir. Nachtwache, or Night Vigil, drew on all the skills of the Troilus Ensemble as, although its seems relatively simple and is quite short, it is a piece of demanding antiphonal singing calling for, and getting, great accuracy from all concerned.

Stravinsky re-found his faith in the Russian Orthodox Church after he moved to Paris and, in 1932, arranged a charming version of the Ave Maria for unaccompanied choir, but with the men singing the dominant parts and the ladies providing something of a background continuo. Although less than two minutes in duration the part-song elements left a marginally ragged ending.

John Tavener set William Blake’s poem The Lamb to music for a cappella choir in an afternoon to celebrate his nephew’s third birthday. As might be expected in a song for a child, the ladies have the major roles, and the sopranos and altos of the Troilus Ensemble gave us a suitable rendition.

Two pieces by the distinguished Welsh composer Karl Jenkins that brought this one hour concert to a climax. ‘Sanctus’ from The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace is an imposing unison part of the overall work, and then for the finale an extract from his suite Adiemus – Dances of Time, when the Troilus Ensemble was asked to sing in an unintelligible language.

Overall an impressive debut for a vocal ensemble that has found a niche in the music scene in the Highlands. Generally, the singing was of a high standard but there is still a great deal of rehearsal needed before national level is achieved, and it is to be hoped that the size of audience that supported this debut will come out again next March when Reno Troilus plans to present a second series of performances.

© James Munro, 2012