On A Wing and A Prayer Deeside Online and other exciting (Arctic) news!

Wow, time seems to have flown by since I last wrote on here and there is so much to talk about!

First of all, and most importantly, On A Wing and A Prayer – Deeside will be streaming as an on-demand online concert 12th-14th April inclusive. Recorded at our performance at The Barn Banchory last month, Pete Stollery has created an incredible binaural sound recording of music by him, Joe Stollery, Charles Ross, Paul Anderson and I. Listen through headphones and you can really feel yourself in the middle of what our audience members on the night described as

“a truly immersive experience that offered a sense of insignificance when confronted with the forces of nature.“

I’ve absolutely loved working on this project based on an area of Scotland that I’ve long loved and with a new commission from Charles Ross from Egilsstaðir, the place in Iceland that most reminds me of home.

You can book the online performance, which will be streamed on Soundcloud, via eventbrite. We are asking for donations to cover the recording fee and online licence.

Don’t worry too much about booking a specific day (an eventbrite quirk!). Once you receive the link, you can listen when you like up to and including 14th April.

Arctic Science Summit Week – Edinburgh

What an absolute honour it was to perform alongside clarinettist Alex South and poet Lesley Harrison at the Arctic Science Summit Week Arts Plenary at Edinburgh University, where we played CETACEA by Alex and I with poetry by Lesley, Karen Power‘s Sonic Cradle and a new piece on changing patterns of whale migration by Alex.

It’s not so often you meet fellow Arctic travellers so it was a joy to make new connections and exchange experiences with composer Michael Begg and artists Georgia Rose Murray and Mary Walters, all of whom have visited and interpreted the Arctic and Antarctic in their own work. It’s impossible to travel to these special places without them making a mark on you and your work so there’s always a feeling of kinship when we get to meet – that feeling that the other person deeply understands what it is that draws you to the farthest northern regions.

There were also books available to take away outlining current Arctic scientific research, all of which will feed into future work.

Ummannaq Polar Institute

The absolute highlight for me, though, was watching and listening to the young people of Ummannaq Polar Institute. I have long admired the work carried out by Ann Andreasen and her team at the children’s home. These young people have been through a lot in their lives and music is a valuable social and therapeutic tool. (They also use the “El Sistema” teaching method, whose sucess we’ve also witnessed here in Scotland through “The Big Noise.”)

The pride, assurance, love and commitment with which they delivered their programme was an absolute credit to them. They’re great musicians and it was an emotional experience for me to hear the sound of Greenlandic music and language live for the first time in 5 years. To talk to Ann as well as a lovely young lady from the choir afterwards was an honour and I sincerely hope to visit them in Uummannaq in the not too distant future.

Here’s one of their music videos from earlier this year on youtube so you can hear them for yourselves:

Greenland/Shetland project – Nordic Music Days

Well, the ASSW was the perfect kickstart to our next project which will start with a residency in Shetland in a couple of weeks’ time.

With the support of Creative Scotland, I’ll be working once again with Shetland resident Renzo Spiteri and Greenlander Arnannguaq Gerstrøm, who is currently living in Denmark, towards a performance at Nordic Music Days in Glasgow in late October/early November. We’re interested in the intersection of cultures between Shetland and Greenland at 60 degrees latitude. There are a surprising number of parallels between these two places with histories and music intertwined from the early Norse settlers, through whaling and fishing voyages in the 18th and 19th century to modern industries such as fishing, tourism and renewables. Even the coastal landscapes bear a remarkable and, perhaps, surprising resemblance. Here are two pictures I constantly return too:

Shetland

Greenland

I first met Arnannguaq in Nuuk, Greenland, in 2017 and commissioned a piece, “Ukioq”, from her which we premiered in the RSNO chamber series in Glasgow 2018. We subsequently recorded it last year and it’s on our album Elsewhere, Elsewhen which you can buy here. I’m really excited to be working together again and, this time, performing together with Arnannguaq on flute as well as Renzo on percussion. We’ll very likely be bringing in field recordings from both islands to our work, too.

Art at Stirling/RCS

Next time I’ll tell you about a new collaboration between Nordic Viola, Art at Stirling University and the composition department of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I’ve just received a set of freshly minted scores for flute/clarinet/viola/cello inspired by the art collection and it’s going to be a fun, fresh and exciting project

Meantime, enjoy listening to On A Wing and A Prayer Deeside next weekend and I look forward to hearing your responses.

A little taster!

On A Wing and A Prayer – Deeside is this Thursday 14th March at 7:30 at The Barn Banchory and Pete, Joe and I are really looking forward to sharing the music we’ve created from our residency in Braemar this January with our friends and supporters in Aberdeenshire.

Today I want to share with you a short video showing the wonderful nature and soft, snowy scenes we experienced in January in Glen Quoich set to a short fragment of our music as well as a few words from Pete about how he used the sounds we collected in January to create the elecroacoustic sounds over which Joe and I improvised and composed music for viola.

Of course this video can’t get across the wonderful spatialisation in sound that Pete has created for the room, so to hear the music to full effect, make sure you book yourself a ticket from: https://thebarnarts.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173652872

For those of you who live too far away from Deeside we will be recording the concert here, so subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss it.

A word or two about the electroacoustic sound… by Pete Stollery

Most of the sounds you will hear were recorded during our three-day residency in Braemar in January earlier this year. They will be presented over eight loudspeakers which surround the audience in order to provide a kind of sonic immersion where you witness the sound from within. Sometimes the sound will seem to come from everywhere at once, and sometimes from specific places but the dynamic nature of the movement of the sound is designed to allow the audience to perceive it from a different viewpoint (hearpoint?), not as if it were merely happening in front of you.

Open…, the sound of a tiny stream we discovered on our way up to the Quoich gradually fills the space, enveloping the audience before a discernible note slowly rises from the texture. Grain is a short study on the sonic characteristics and behaviours of water, its graininess, its dynamic movement, with hints of what lies under the water. The New Bridge – Frozen Solitude explores the coldness of the place and Muckle Spate charts an imaginary journey through the water at the height of Storm Frank, gradually settling into Alluvial Fan – Dissipation – The Birds Return. Listening is central to all my creative output – it is a sense that we under-use and one which can provide a huge amount of information and detail if we only give it a chance. You are invited to listen in – more than you would normally do – to discover the movement, the shapes, the behaviours of the sounds, in a musical way.

The New Forest by Charles Ross

One of the themes running through On A Wing and A Prayer is introducing audiences to Nordic music by composers whose style complements that of the composers I’m working with.

For our performance in Banchory, Deeside on 14^th March, I’ve commissioned Icelandic /Scottish composer, Charles Ross to write a new piece for me inspired by the forests of East Iceland. Yes, you read that correctly: Iceland does have trees. If there’s one thing in nature I miss in the Far North it’s trees, so when I stay in Egilsstađir I delight in spending time in the dwarf birch woods on the edge of town and in “The New Forest” of Hallormsstađar along the banks of the incredible Lagarfljót, whose green glacial waters stretch practically from the northern foot of the Vatnajokull glacier up to the North-East coast. Both these woodlands, plus the wide open mountain landscape, remind me of the Cairngorms National Park with its birch woods and pine and the drive to regenerate ancient woodlands.

Charles and I, too,share several things in common: we’re both viola players and love creating music through improvisation and open scores. We’ve performed 3 improvised concerts together at the Blue Church in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland in 2016 and at Mengi in Reykjavík and Slátarhusið, Egilsstaðir in 2019.

His use of short melodic and rhythmic cells and almost primeval, elemental textures fits well with the electroacoustic sounds drawn from field recordings that Pete Stollery is creating and with Joe’s delicate transcriptions of bird calls, which, like Charles’ music, will be mine to piece together in performance.

First Impressions

There’s always a feeling of great anticipation and, I’ll be honest, a little nervousness when a new commission lands in your inbox, especially when you’re dealing with non-standard notation. I was going to say also an element of interpretation, but really that goes for all types of music – that’s our job as performers, after all, and notation is always an inexact science.

My first thought on seeing “The New Forest” (and that of almost everyone I’ve shown it too) was “Wow, what an incredibly beautiful and intricate score” followed closely by “how do I start learning this?”

Finding my way

At first glance it’s not so easy to see your way through the piece – after all, it is a forest! My first job was to understand how the information is presented to me. Charles ‘ notation is actually very clear: 4 stave lines represent the 4 strings of the viola and on each line is the number of which finger I’m using as well as an indication of what position my left hand is in. For the right hand, there are little graphics showing the contact point and degree of pressure for the bow. The music is made up of tiny motifs, often repeated, with main motifs and satellite motifs. How to move from one section to another is shown by direction arrows and there are short transition sections, which are often pitchless – I think of them as being like the trees breathing, that sense of being amongst living entities that you get in a forest.

I decided to start work by literally cutting the piece into sections and learning each section – a case of being able to see the wood as well as the trees! Once I felt I knew the piece a little, I pieced it back together again – quite literally, by sticking the sections onto black card and enlarging them. This act in itself helps me learn my way through the piece.

Work in Progress

My first proper attempt at a playthrough felt pretty rambling and unbalanced. I realised that I was repeating cells based on when my brain had processed my next move rather than truly understanding the form of the piece, so I returned to studying it more closely again with my focus on the micro and macro levels.

First I needed to actually understand the function and content of each section. Is the  music primarily melodic, harmonic or textural? Is it static or is it moving forward? What tone colour am I producing ? What are the tempo relationships? Then I needed to understand the progression through the whole piece – the overarching form. I looked for material that was developed or repeated, trying to understand how and why it had changed,

Getting closer to the performance date, I’m almost there now and ready to send a version for Charles to comment on. Here’s a sneaky peak at work in progress:

I’m loving learning it. The fact that I need to delve into the structure and, in many ways, to construct it anew in my own performance, means that I’m developing a very close and intimate relationship with the music. I feel very inside the piece and can really feel the journey through that forest on a very personal level. It’s very delicate music with its brittle, col legno and tratto textures and its tiny little cells, yet, like the trees, it has a robust structure. I hope you’ll enjoy its very distinctive sound when you hear it in performance.

https://thebarnarts.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173652872

Elsewhere, Elsewhen is out on CD and digital album.

Wow, what an intense month it’s been launching Elsewhere, Elsewhen! Now the album’s making its own way in the world I’ve finally got some time to tell you how it’s been going and to let you know that orders received  by Friday 15^th December will be shipped to you by Christmas. Remember too that, if you order on Bandcamp, you can send the album as a gift. Of course, for the digital album, you can order right up until Christmas Day itself.

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Dunblane Launch

Nordic Viola is all about small communities in the north, so we celebrated launch day itself at home in the beautiful and intimate Weigh Ahead Gallery in Dunblane, surrounded by wonderfully apt photographs of Scottish wildlife by Elaine Bradley. I was joined by local writer and friend, Jim Fraser, as we listened to the recording and shared the many stories behind the music. It was lovely to talk about the album and the places Nordic Viola has visited with friends old and new over a glass of wine.

Glasgow Launch

The following week we took Elsewhere, Elsewhen into the big city at Scottish Music Centre in Glasgow. I was joined by Helen Brew and Janet Larsson (flutes) as well as David Martin (viola) and David Hubbard (bassoon) to play Carry His Relics by Gemma McGregor , Uyeasound Nocturne by Adrian Vernon Fish and Ukioq by Arnannguaq Gerstrøm. We also shared Lillie Harris’ Elsewhen and Linda Buckley’s Aud in our Sagas and Seascapes videos, which, of course, also gave us the chance to show off Craig Sinclair’s fabulous video and Orla Stevens’ artwork, which also graces our album.

Scottish Music Centre did us proud, decorating the space with lights and creating a real atmosphere of hygge. This really is an album to enjoy by candlelight by the fire during these long winter nights,  glass in hand! Here’s what people have been saying so far:

“By immersing the listener into the emotional gravitas that fiercely portrays mystery, balance, the unknown reminders of past lives and difficulties against the cold and the animals that used as prey, what is presented is an album of immense understanding.” (Liverpool Sound and Vision)

“One wants to escape into that sound.” (Arnhildur Valgarðsdóttir, Iceland.”

“Thank you for sharing your music alongside its stories and people. I’m away to listen for the wind again. Stunning.” (Elizabeth Fuller, Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling)

I’m also proud that Elsewhere, Elsewhen has been receiving radio plays from as far away as Florida!

When you order from Bandcamp, you can also order Orla Stevens’ fine art prints and cards inspired by three of the pieces: Carry His Relics, Elsewhen (the inspiration behind the album cover) and Aud. They add that extra something to the album as a present. https://nordicviola.bandcamp.com/merch

If you would like to hear music from the album live in your neighbourhood we are available to tour and you can contact us here. Which brings me to….

Next Year

…and we’re busier than ever!

On A Wing and A Prayer resumes following our incredibly successful start with Renzo Spiteri in Shetland last September. From January to March I’ll be working with Pete and Joe Stollery, where our focus will be on the changing ecology of the Caledonian Pine Forests around Deeside. From April to June I’ll be in Morvern in the West Highlands with composer Lisa Robertson. I’ll be pairing their music respectively with Icelandic composers Charles Ross and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir.

Sagas and Seascapes continues to tour and we’re hoping to unite with our Faroese colleagues Aldubáran again in Orkney and Mainland Scotland.

Plans are afoot to work with Renzo Spiteri again and hopefully that will also involve old friend Arnannguaq Gerstrøm from Greenland/Denmark. This will be a very exciting and fresh project once we have raised the necessary funding.

Finally, we have a new collaboration on home ground with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland composition department and the University of Stirling ‘s art collection, cementing our reputation of working with emerging composers and working with visual art.

I hope you all have a lovely festive period and I look forward to meeting more of you on our travels next year.

On A Wing and A Prayer Shetland Performance

On a Wing and a Prayer – Recorded live in Shetland – Broadcast online 28th-30th October – sign up here

Once again regretting the non-existence of a ferry between the Faroes and Shetland, after less than a week at home, I was travelling north again to Shetland, thankfully by train and boat this time!

Katherine Wren and Renzo Spiteri

Creative Process

After 6 months of working with composer, percussionist and sound artist Renzo Spiteri and poet Lesley Harrison on the first stage of my On A Wing and A Prayer project, it was time for the inaugural concert. It’s been an interesting process working on a collaborative project at a distance over a period of time and not something I’d necessarily have thought of taking on pre-pandemic. It’s been amazing to see how in each intervening period, the work has come on in leaps and bounds as we each listened back to work in progress, honing the structure and the sounds we were working with, sending musical material back and forth to push on our ideas. It’s a great way of working over large distances whilst doing minimal damage to the environment.

Changing habitats 

Meanwhile, the ecological issues we were focusing on were developing over time, meaning that our response changed too. These issues were principally bird flu and the dichotomy of the benefits of renewable energy versus the damage done to moorland, peatland and birdlife in its construction. We chose not to present a particular standpoint but to express our own emotions through music in the hope that it would become a vehicle for other people to express theirs.

Poetry

The final piece in the jigsaw was Lesley Harrison’s poetry. Renzo and I both felt we needed language as a focal point for the music and we sent some clips of our preliminary work to Lesley, a poet who has a very strong affinity with music. In turn, Lesley’s words provided the final impetus to our work as we asked Shetlander Billy Mail to read them for us, so we could incorporate them into the musical texture. Lesley prefers us to use the words sparingly in a way that serves a real function in the music. At the same time, they’re poems that deserve an airing in full, and so they’re printed in the programme. If  you sign up to our online concert 28th-30^th October then you’ll receive a link to this.

The Boat Hall, Shetland Museum

The performance

Our performance took place in the Boat Hall at Shetland Museum. I love performing in this space with its views across the harbour and the sixareen next to us as an ever-present reminder of seafaring. The core of our programme was a triptych of pieces by us: Serenity, Bleakness and Windfarm. For those interested in our compositional process, these were partly scored whilst leaving some room for improvisation on the day. The music took us from a state of calm by the sea with birdcalls and the lapping of the water, through a reflection on the bleakness of the open moor, the damage done to the peatland and the impact of bird flu on the skua population. Windfarm speaks for itself with a mixture of industrial sounds, uncomfortable low frequencies and the human voice, followed by an intense processional marking large-scale human footprint on the landscape – and it was scale we were focusing on in this piece and not the principle of renewables, which is something I very much support when done sensitively and with respect.

Mousa Broch

Continuing our reflections on birdlife, we performed two movements from Drrrunnn by Faroese composer Kristian Blak. The first of these featured storm petrels, recalling my visit to Mousa Broch last summer and the second featuring guillemots, fulmars and gannets. Gannets, of course, have been heavily impacted by bird flu. There had been a Faroese element in Serenity too, as my melody was inspired by the contours of a Faroese hymn.

The performance finished on a positive note with our arrangement of the old Fetlar tune, Winya Depla.

Audience Response

We got many responses to our question “What is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about our changing habitat?” Here are a few comments:

“Deep sadness, impotence, rage and – hope“

“Missing the birds: dunter, puffins, tirrick – only a few are around now“

“It feels like so few people really care!“

“We need to apologise to the earth and the sea and all the creatures we share a dying planet with“

“It has always changed. It will always change.“

As On A Wing and A Prayer progresses and the body of thoughts grows I need to think about how to collate and present these ideas and I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please do either comment or use the contact form. One idea I have is to arrange some intergenerational workshops taking these immediate responses as a stimulus to create music and art by  the community. What do you think?

Online Concert

Sign up here to listen to a recording of our Shetland performance from 28^th-30^th October. Suggested donation is £5 to cover music licensing and recording costs, but pay just what you can afford. Here’s a short taster:

Enjoying autumn in Shetland

Aside from the music-making, I had a little time to enjoy Shetland although, burdened by a cold, it was all short trips close to Lerwick. I did have time after one rehearsal, though, to explore the isthmus where Renzo lives in  bright sunshine between heavy showers. Beautiful panoramic views across the sea to the Drongs and Eshaness, one of the most dramatic areas of Shetland. The bus journey out to West Mainland is always a delight, especially as you summit the climb over to Whiteness Voe and see Burra and all the small islands set against the silvery light on the water at midday.

I also cycled across Bressay and spent some time by Noss Sound in the most exquisite autumn light. The sea was a deep blue, the land a mixture of bright greens and vegetation starting to turn brown. A series of convective showers offered a fine and varied display of cloud formations and some full double rainbows.

This year I’ve been lucky to work in Shetland in three seasons (spring did a good shot at masquerading as winter, too!). Summer was lovely and offered easy living, but I have to say, I love the light quality and shifting weather of the equinoxes more. Shetland in the snow in March was an especial treat and something I’ll never forget. I’ve learned so much working with Renzo and we’re already planning new projects working with musicians further north. Watch this space!

Shetland March 2023

Nordic Viola in the Faroes

September was Nordic Viola’s busiest month ever with trips to the Faroe Islands with Sagas and Seascapes and Shetland with On a Wing and a Prayer. We also aired “Shetland Connections” on YouTube for European Folk Day and, of course, placed our new album, Elsewhere, Elsewhen, open for pre-orders.

I know many of you enjoy learning about the places we work in, so I thought I’d take some time to reflect and share some of the lovely landscapes we experienced as well as the music we made! Part one is the Faroe Islands and tomorrow I’ll update you on Shetland!

Faroe Islands

Following our appearance at Made In Scotland in Edinburgh and our online event last summer we connected with the Nordic House in Tórshavn. I was really keen to take Sagas and Seascapes up to the Faroe Islands as music by Kári Bæk and Eli Tausen á Lava formed a big part of our programme and so conversations began straight away with Aldubáran (our Faroese counterparts) and the Nordic House in Tórshavn to do a joint production of the show.

And so on 4th September, Anne Bünemann (violin), Robert Digney (clarinet) and I found ourselves on the stunning approach between mountains to Vágar airport. Not for the nervous flyer. (Quick environmental note here: I would dearly love to take the ferry to the Faroes, especially as it passes the tip of Shetland, but unfortunately it takes about 4 days in each direction, two ferry crossings and trains via Holland and Denmark. We really need Smyril line to stop in Shetland again – as it used to decades ago).

The following day we met and rehearsed with our colleagues from Aldubáran: Andrea Heindriksdóttir (flute), Jón Festirstein (violin) and Kristina á Váli (cello). I’ll confess to a few nerves about bringing two ensembles together with limited rehearsal time on a complex programme, but I needn’t have worried as the two ensembles quickly blended. It was such a joy to share this music from our two countries together. As ever, the door to the music school in Tórshavn was always open to us (and what a fabulous facility it is) and it quickly became our “home” – a place to practise and meet colleagues between rehearsals. Thank you to all for making us feel so welcome!

Kirkjubøur

The weather in September can get pretty wild (as I experienced in 2016!) so we got out whilst we could and walked as far as we had time for across Streymoy from Tórshavn towards Kirkubøur, the panoramic views of the rocky islands of Koltur and Hestur (the colt and the horse) opening out before us. Linguists amongst you will spot the link to the old name for Orkney’s capital, Kirkwall – Kirkjuvagr. Both places are the “inlet of the church” and both have a St. Magnus Cathedral, though the Faroese one is in ruins. Always these historical links to explore!

The next day was taken up by more rehearsals before Anne and I popped up to the Nordic House to meet the staff and look round the venue. What a beautiful venue it is, reflecting on the cultural heritage of the islands, both in its work and its architecture. A place to enjoy the arts, to meet people and to relax, looking across the town and out to sea.

Sagas and Seascapes in the Nordic House

Thursday the 7th September was our first concert day in the Main Hall of the Nordic House with Craig Sinclair and Orla Stevens‘ beautiful film on its biggest screen ever!

Nordic Viola and Aldubáran were a unit by now and it was an absolute joy to bring our programme to the Faroes and to perform Eli Tausen á Lava’s Søgnin um Kópakonuna and Kári Bæk’s Wogen at home. For me, it was an honour to perform “Wogen” live with Kári in the hall after working together to transcribe this cello solo for viola.

There were, of course, other references to the Faroes in the programme. Aud (music by Linda Buckley), as well as travelling to Iceland via Orkney, had also rested in the Faroe Islands on her way north, where she married off one of her granddaughters, Ólöf . The town of Gøta, which we would pass through later in the week, was named after Torbjørn Gøtuskegg, who is said to have descended from Ólöf, Torbjørn was the father of the famous Tróndur í Gøtu, who is the central character of Færeyinga saga. Today, the town of Gøta consists of four smaller villages: Norðragøta, Syðrugøta, Gøtueiði and Gøtugjógv. Some street names in Norðragøta still remind us of the central figures of this saga: Tróndargøta (Tróndur í Gøta), Óluvugøta (Ólöf, granddaughter of Aud) and Eyðargøta (Aud herself).

Additionally, composer Kristian Blak tells me that the Danish tune the Dromer, as well as being drawn from the Scottish tune, The Drummer, is also recorded by Svabo in the Faroes.

Nólsoy

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The following day was free so we took the opportunity to take the ferry past the old parliament area of Tinganes and over to the island of Nólsoy. Nólsoy was the home of national hero Nólsoyar Páll who fought to end the Royal Trade Monopoly which was exhausting and impoverishing the people of the Faroe Islands between 1271 and 1856. It is also home to a large colony of storm petrels, some of which have been ringed and traced to the Shetland Islands, where they breed on Moussa – a colony I’d seen in July.

On a blustery day, we walked to the two lighthouses at the southern end of the Island, enjoying the hills, the sea, the birds and wildlife.

Klaksvík

On Saturday we travelled to Klaksvík on the northern island of Borðoy. For the Nordic Viola musicians it was a chance to travel early and enjoy the scenic bus journey across three islands, passing through Norðragøta and Syðrugøta with its reminders of Aud and Leirvík with its very obvious linguistic link to Shetland’s capital, Lerwick – muddy bays both!

We had hoped to perform in the brand new cultural centre, Varpið, but sadly it’s not quite ready. Next time! The school was still a lovely place to play, though, with its wooden, airy hall and informal banked seating. A picture from rehearsals – I apologise for my lack of concert dress due to getting the film up and running!

Concerts successfully completed, we travelled back to Tórshavn through the famous new Esturoy tunnel with its three-way roundabout in the middle. Jón duly obliged by driving round it twice whilst we took pictures!

Vestmanna

Concerts duly completed and a free day before our flight home gave us the opportunity to spend a day in and around Vestmanna, famous for its bird cliffs. Sadly, ocean currents meant we couldn’t go to the cliffs themselves, but then, the nesting season is over anyway and the sea caves and rock formations on Vágar were equally stunning and will surely inspire future performances.

Thank you

Taking Sagas and Seascapes to the Faroes and performing with Aldubáran was a great privilege. Anne, Robert and I would like to thank Made In Scotland for promoting our performances in Edinburgh last summer and exposing our work to international promoters. Many thanks also to Orkney International Science Festival who first commissioned Sagas and Seascapes.

We also need to extend a big thank you to all the creators who were unable to travel with us. Composers Gemma McGregor, Lillie Harris and Linda Buckley, artist Orla Stevens and videographer Craig Sinclair, as well as the three Nordic Viola musicians we left at home. Without you, this trip would, of course, never have happened. Please visit our Sagas and Seascapes to learn more about their work.

If you would like to bring Sagas and Seascapes to a venue near you, please do get in touch here. It is now available with both English and Danish subtitles and we especially hope to be able to work alongside Aldubáran again, both in Scotland and the Nordic countries.

Two performances, a video and a CD!

Hot on the heels of our tour to the Faroe Islands, this week must be Nordic Viola’s busiest ever!

Tomorrow I depart for Shetland (oh how I wish Smyril Line still stopped there between Faroe and Denmark!) where I’ll perform with Renzo Spiteri for the first time in part one of On a Wing and a Prayer at the Boat Hall, Shetland Museum on 20th September at 6:30pm. Our hour long performance is perfect for some reflective music after work and will leave time for people outside Lerwick to travel home. Tickets available here. Capacity is limited, so I’d recommend buying in advance.

Remember you can find out more about this event and have a sneak preview of some of our music in this podcast:

It’s a particular pleasure to be welcoming poet Lesley Harrison to our performance. I commissioned Lesley to write three poems for us. These were inspired by the themes in our music, and, in turn, they’ve fed into our creative process. You’ll be able to hear snippets of Lesley’s poems in Renzo’s soundscapes read by Billy Mail and you can also read the poems in full in the programme.

Here’s a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

Whale Songs at WayWord, Aberdeen

Lesley and I will be working together again just two days after On A Wing and a Prayer, this time on Whale Songs, a programme we developed with clarinettist Alex South for Arbroath 2020+1.

We’ll be at WayWord Festival at the King’s Pavilion, Aberdeen University on Friday 22nd September at 7pm. Tickets, which are free, are here.

Central to this programme is our film of Cetacea, which you can watch here:

Incidentally, for fans of longterm Nordic Viola collaborator, Gemma McGregor, her music, setting words by Shetlandic poet Christine De Luca, will feature in the same festival on 19th September.

Shetland Connections Video

Our final performance of the week is a recorded one of our Shetland Connections concert given by David Martin and I on two violas in January and is a celebration of European Folk Day, 23rd September. For just one week, you can catch this performance of traditional music old and new from Shetland and the countries connected to her through the sea routes – Faroe, Iceland and Greenland on YouTube. The performance was in the Weigh Ahead Gallery, Dunblane, and also featured art by the Shetland Collective, some of which you can see in the film. The link goes live at midnight on 23rd September. If you enjoy this concert, please consider donating to Ability Shetland.

Elsewhere, Elsewhen CD pre-orders

Possibly the most exciting news of the week is that pre-orders of our first album, Elsewhere, Elsewhen, go live on 19th September.

You’ll be able to order the digital album and CD and you’ll get our recording of Linda Buckley’s Aud straight away.

The full album will be released on 20th November.

Much, much more on that next weekend. In the meantime, you may want to follow Nordic Viola at Bandcamp and keep an eye on our social media.

On A Wing and A Prayer, WayWord Festival and Elsewhere, Elsewhen are supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland. Elsewhere, Elsewhen is also supported by the Vaughan Williams Foundation.

Creating “Windfarm” – On a Wing and a Prayer, Shetland

Photo: London Rachel, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

On a Wing and a Prayer, a  two-year project on the changing habitats of the north begins with a one-hour performance with percussionist, composer and sound artist Renzo Spiteri in Shetland on 20^th September in the wonderfully atmospheric Boat Hall at Shetland Museum, looking out over the harbour in Lerwick: a setting where the forces of nature can be very much in sight and sound during performances!

Tickets are available via Eventbrite.

Podcast

Renzo and I got together with composer and podcaster Aileen Sweeney of Ear to the Ground to talk about our work together and about what you can expect at our performance. This is the first in an occasional series of podcasts and I would love to hear your thoughts on what I might include in future episodes. You can contact me here.

Windfarm

The climax of our performance in Shetland will be a piece called Windfarm. It’s our most complex piece, so I thought it might be nice to delve into it a little more deeply than we had time for in the podcast.

Interestingly, the origins of the music came long before the subject matter. Renzo and I first met at UHI’s Shoormal Conference in Mareel in 2019. We were eager to meet and improvise with each other, exploring the points of intersection in our practice – and then the pandemic hit!

Undaunted, we started swapping material online, improvising layer upon layer to each other’s work. I have to ask myself, would we have thought of working in this way if we hadn’t been compelled to? Out of adversity grows innovation and new ways of thinking – obviously now most of our creation is taking place in the same room, where we can discuss and try out new things together, yet this online sharing allows us to work in a more sustainable way, pushing our ideas forward between meetings without the need to travel all the time.

One of the pieces we developed online, suspended sheets, had some quite incredible, metallic sounds. I had a lot of fun responding on the viola d’amore  (a new instrument for me at the time) exploring some edgy harmonics, resonances and special effects that blended and complemented the metallic sounds Renzo was producing.

We both felt that there was much to develop and take forward from these initial ideas. By now, the Viking Windfarm was taking shape and concerning us both in terms of the impact on the landscape and wildlife, pollution in water sources and the effects of subsonic sound on human physical and mental health.

At this point I’ll introduce 2 caveats. Firstly and most importantly, I am not against wind energy. We need to have cleaner forms of energy BUT we do need to carefully consider scale and the  impact on both nature and people. Secondly, whilst Renzo does live in Shetland, I don’t. It’s therefore not my place to judge these particular developments,  though my own area, too, is in dialogue with SSEN on a number of projects. Instead, in our music, we seek to convey our own reactions and emotions and hope that these can be a vehicle for other people to start their own conversations on what is happening up on the moor.

There were three elements in our music that drew our thoughts and our ears to the windfarm: the edgy, metallic sounds of the percussion and a special effect on the viola d’amore, the deep, ominous low frequency groans in the music akin to the low-frequency rumble around a windfarm (research on the effects of this on human health ìs ongoing) and the processional nature of the melodic material, which made us think of the footprint of humankind on the landscape.

I sent our musical sketches to poet and long-term collaborator Lesley Harrison. Her poem put into words exactly this sense of unease, of trampling rough-shod over the land and the almost sinister feel of these windmills when crammed into a small space (though weirdly I find them quite graceful in small numbers.) Lesley’s words fed back into our music, providing more impetus to the material.

The finished piece will be quite a deep, complex texture, I think, drawing in all these levels of inspiration and our mixed emotions. There’ll be a mix of live sound and field recordings, instrumental effects and excerpts from Lesley’s poems woven into the musical texture.

Our programme doesn’t only deal with gritty environmental issues. There’s also space for peace, reflection and optimism in our programme, too. We’ll start with a piece called “Serenity” which is evocative of the peaceful shoreline with the sound of the sea and the tjalder (oystercatcher).

We’re also incorporating ancient traditional tunes and hymns from Fetlar and the Faroe Islands as well as Faroese composer Kristian Blak’s Drrrunnn, which evokes the very similar soundscapes of Shetland’s neighbours to the north.

On a Wing and a Prayer cards by Orla Stevens

Orla Steven’s striking image for the On a Wing and a Prayer project incorporates windfarms, the sea, seabirds, weather and Scotland’s native woodlands. All issues that we’ll be exploring over the next 12 months.

It’s now available as a greetings card and all profits will be ploughed back into the project. You can buy them online here and at the performance. If you don’t have a paypal account, drop me a message in the contact page and I can arrange payment and delivery for you.

Sagas and Seascapes Exhibition and Film Screening at Weigh Ahead Gallery, Dunblane

I’m really pleased to tell you that Orla Steven’s paintings for our Sagas and Seascapes project are on show once again until 1^st June at the Weigh Ahead Gallery on Dunblane’s High Street and on 21^st May at 7pm, Orla and I will be hosting a special screening of the Sagas and Seascapes film with the music that inspired Orla’s paintings. I’ll be playing a couple of numbers live. Afterwards, you can share a drink and a chat with us.

There is only room for around 20 people in the gallery, so book your tickets (entry by donation) from Eventbrite NOW!

Weigh Ahead, a zero waste shop and social enterprise at the heart of the community in Dunblane, was one of our sponsors in our crowdfunder campaign last year, which helped fund “The Sealwoman”, a new painting by Orla in response to music by Eli Tausen á Lava from the Faroes, so we’re especially pleased to host this exhibition here.

In the video below, you can step with me inside the gallery to see what’s on show.

Film Screening and meet the artists

On 21^st May at 7pm, Orla and I will be hosting a special screening of the Sagas and Seascapes film with the music that inspired Orla’s paintings. Afterwards, you can share a drink and a chat with us. There is only room for around 20 people in the gallery, so book your tickets (entry by donation) from Eventbrite NOW!

Find out more about the work on show at www.sagasandseascapes.com/blog

The creation of Sagas and Seascapes was supported by:

Composing in Shetland and other news!

I’ve been a little quiet over here on the blog since our last performance in January but plenty has been happening in the background as previous projects continue to grow and expand and new ones take shape.

One of these has been simmering away in the background since September 2021 and is now gathering pace. When we visited Shetland to perform Sagas and Seascapes in the Shetland Museum Boat Hall in 2021, I also received some development funding from Creative Scotland to work on an improvisational project with percussionist, composer and sound artist Renzo Spiteri.

Working with Renzo Spiteri in Shetland

Renzo and I first met at the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Shoormal Conference in 2019 where we were both performing. We were immediately curious about each other’s music. We all know what happened in 2020, but despite all that, we were keen to maintain contact, even if travel was impossible.

2020 did, of course, offer up the opportunity to experiment with new ways of working. It wasn’t just that it was forced upon us, it was also that, with a slower pace of life, we had time to learn new skills. For me, this was audio recording and editing, something that Renzo was already adept at. And so it was that we started exchanging tracks, responding to each other’s musical material and seeing what we could create together.

As fun and diverting as that was during lockdown, it was fabulous to finally make music together in the flesh in 2021 and to improvise live together. Those first sessions were about finding our way and combining our musical voices. We worked freely without a theme, each musician suggesting a starting point and improvising out from that. It quickly became clear that we both have a fascination with timbre and texture and love working with both instrumental music and recorded natural sounds. For both of us, the natural environment is a vital inspiration for our work.

Between our online creations and recordings of that September period, we had a fair body of material to work with and, fuelled by our frustration over people’s inability to grasp the harm we are doing to the natural world, a theme was suggesting itself. Our programme will move from the peace of nature and the sea that is common to all the isles of the North Atlantic, through reflections on the natural bleakness of these windswept environments and on to the damage that mankind is doing to these sensitive ecologies as we exploit them.

Shetland in the Snow

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I can’t leave these musings on our work together without mentioning how heart-stoppingly beautiful and inspiring the Shetland landscape was during our latest spell working together. As we worked, the view from the studio window changed from gunmetal skies and lashing blizzards to sparkling winter scenes, the sun dazzling us with its reflection across the sea inlets and shining off the deep powder snow. Peaty browns and spindly old heather replaced by a two-tone landscape of blue and white. The environment outside was as inspiring as it was distracting and I’m sure some interesting work will come of it.

Shetland Connections

Staying with a Shetland theme and following on from David and I’s Shetland Connections performance in Dunblane, I’m currently working on an online version of this concert at the suggestion of friends in Unst, Shetland. The Dunblane performances raised £360, half of which went towards our forthcoming CD and half towards Ability Shetland, a charity that supports the efforts of disabled people to realise their full potential in all areas of life. The online concert will similarly be by donation, again with a 50/50 split between Nordic Viola and Ability Shetland.

I will post again here when the concert is broadcast and tickets will be available via Eventbrite.

Forthcoming album

Speaking of our CD, I will launch the project formally with full details of the music we’ll be featuring when final funding announcements are made, but I am now in a position to tell you that this project will definitely be going ahead this year. Many thanks to all those who have donated through our Crowdfunder stretch target last year, our Dunblane concerts and as private individuals. It’s exciting to share this journey with you.

Sagas and Seascapes Website

Finally, our Sagas and Seascapes project continues to attract attention and artist Orla Stevens has been working on an update of our website. She’s also added a blog on the creation of her new painting in response to Faroese composer Eli Tausen á Lava’s “Søgnin um Kópakonuna í 10 Myndum” (The Tale of the Sealwoman). Again, this painting was funded by money from our Sagas and Seascapes Crowdfunder last year.

Pop over to sagasandseascapes.com to see all this and more.

Following our successful live performances at Made In Scotland in Edinburgh last year, Sagas and Seascapes live with music and film is available to tour. You can contact me on either website if you’re interested in bringing it to your area.

Options include:

• the full sextet of live musicians performing with the film
• the “light” version with the full Sagas and Seascapes film screened in HD and the smaller chamber pieces performed live
• a concurrent exhibition of Orla’s paintings in response to the music
• Orla and I can also offer art and music community workshops alongside performances