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.

Elsewhere Elsewhen CD launch event

The launch event for our new CD, “Elsewhere, Elsewhen,” will take place on Thursday 30th November at 7pm at the Scottish Music Centre. Attendance is limited to 50 people, so we recommend that you book tickets in advance. Secure your free ticket through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/elsewhere-elsewhen-cd-launch-party-tickets-753733325667

CDs will be available for purchase at the event, but if you’d like to reserve one in advance, you can visit our shop on this website or go to Bandcamp for a CD and/or digital album: https://nordicviola.bandcamp.com/album/elsewhere-elsewhen

I look forward to meeting some of you in person at our launch event.

Elsewhere, Elsewhen CD launch events

It’s just 3 weeks till Elsewhere, Elsewhen is officially released on 20th November. Pre-orders are going well and we’ve had quite a few radio plays already.

I’m looking forward to meeting lots of you at launch events and listening parties over the next few months and where better to start than in Nordic Viola’s own village of Dunblane!

We’ll be holding a launch and listening party with our friends the Weigh Ahead Gallery in Dunblane on Monday 20th November from 7pm. You’ll be able to listen to the CD over a drink and find out more about the creative process behind it in a conversation hosted by local author, Jim Fraser. And of course you’ll be able to buy a CD!

If you’d prefer a digital album, it’s available now on all major streaming platforms via this link: https://listen.scot/nvelse

If you’re planning on coming to our Dunblane launch, it’d really help if you could book a free place via eventbrite to help us cater. And remember, spaces are limited in this intimate venue.

You can also pre-order both CDs and digital albums at Bandcamp on this link: https://nordicviola.bandcamp.com/album/elsewhere-elsewhen

It’s been brilliant to work with artist Orla Stevens again on the artwork. Why not bag yourself a print or card of her beautiful paintings in response to three of the music tracks from our merchandise page when you buy your album!

Future Launch Events

We’re also in the process of planning launch events in Glasgow and Orkney. Subscribe here to keep up-to-date with events:

I know many of you who follow this blog regularly live further afield and I’m considering doing an online listening party. If that’s something you’d be interested in, it’d be really useful to know, so drop me a line here or via social media.

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

Elsewhere, Elsewhen Album available for Pre-order now!

Apologies to anyone who struggled to open this post yesterday – a slip of the finger made it subscriber only!

I’m very excited to tell you that Elsewhere, Elsewhen, our first album, is now available for pre-order in CD and digital download formats. You can order it on Bandcamp here.

Release date is 20th November, so make sure to place your order early to be among the first to receive the CD or digital album. As a bonus, you’ll receive an instant download of Linda Buckley‘s Aud, which traces in music the journey of this heroine from the Icelandic Sagas from Caithness to Iceland.

Elsewhere, Elsewhen is also available on all major streaming platforms, from where you’ll be able to listen to a preview of Adrian Vernon Fish‘s Uyeasound Nocturne, a piece inspired by a calm winter’s evening in Shetland following a storm. Click here to find Elsewhere, Elsewhen on your favourite streaming platform.

The music on the album journeys from Orkney to Greenland via Iceland and the Faroes and also includes pieces from our popular Sagas and Seascapes programme by Gemma McGregor and Lillie Harris, specially commissioned works about Iceland and Greenland by Anna Appleby and Arnannguaq Gerstrøm, music from the Faroe Islands by Kári Bæk and a very special piece composed by me and the fiddlers of Anderson High School in Shetland, which was performed live by Nordic Viola and students of Tórshavn Music School in 2018.

People have already been commenting on the beautiful album art. Those of you who know Sagas and Seascapes will recognise it as Elsewhen by Orla Stevens. I’m so pleased to partner with Orla once again and, if you want to explore more of her art, you can buy her Sagas and Seascapes prints and cards from our Bandcamp merchandise page whilst you wait for your CD!

We are very grateful for the support of the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and the Vaughan Williams Foundation, as well as our crowdfunders and donors for supporting the creation of this album.

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.

Elsewhere, Elsewhen- Nordic Viola’s first album – Coming soon!

I’m  very excited to tell you that next month we will start work on Nordic Viola’s first album, Elsewhere, Elsewhen.

Our title is drawn from Lillie Harris’ evocative piece, Elsewhen, which  imagines life in Orkney through the long lens of time, coupled with the idea of Elsewhere – looking to the Far North and the cultural and geographical connections around the North Atlantic.

Lillie’s music will naturally be featured, alongside another Orcadian piece from our popular Sagas and Seascapes programme, Gemma McGregor’s commission for Nordic Viola, Carry His Relics, based on the history of St. Magnus, to whom Kirkwall’s great cathedral is dedicated.

Nordic Viola has developed a strong reputation for commissioning women composers, particularly those at the start of their careers, and we’re proud to make the first recordings of Linda Buckley’s Aud , Anna Appleby’s Hrakningar and Arnannguaq Gerstrøm’s Ukioq.

Each of these pieces grew out of conversations with the composers about shared interests. Linda and I were both fascinated by the stories from the Icelandic Sagas of strong female leaders, many of whom made incredible, long distance sea journeys across the wild North Atlantic.

Anna’s “Hrakningar” also came from the idea of migration and journeying- this time my own very personal experience. One of my strongest memories from my time in Iceland was of camping next to Lagarfljot in Iceland listening to the geese gathering to migrate at exactly the same time as I was due to fly south myself. Anna encountered the haunting sound of the geese calling on her own visit to Reykjavik and I knew she was the right person to set this to music. In her piece, Anna takes the migration of geese as a metaphor for those making perilous journeys to new lands and the piece begins and ends with a haunting track incorporating the sound of geese, which always makes me think of looking up and seeing the mysterious green swirls of the northern lights.

Arnannguaq Gerstrøm’s Ukioq was commissioned after I met Arnannguaq at home in Greenland. I spent many hours with Arnannguaq learning about Greenlandic culture and the many diverse cultural elements that make up modern Greenlandic life. I asked Arnannguaq to write a piece to complement Kári Bæk’s Vár (Spring) Trio for the same forces of flute, bassoon and viola. I left Arnannguaq to pick  her season, but I’m glad she chose winter. The season often seen as one to be endured further south is, whilst undeniably hard too, with long hours of darkness, a time to celebrate in Greenland. Hunting on the sea ice becomes possible. There is the exhilaration of dog-sledding across the vast open space of the frozen sea and, of course, the stunning displays of the aurora borealis – another very strong memory for me.

Kari Bæk’s Vár Trio will also be on the album. We rehearsed this piece with Kári whilst we were in the Faroes in 2018, performing it in concert at the Nordic House (Norđurlandshusiđ) in Tórshavn. There will, in fact, be a track recorded in that very concert: Mjørkaflókar is a piece written by me and pupils from Anderson High School in Shetland. We took a Faroese children’s song as our starting point to reflect on the cultural links between Shetland and the Faroes. It was an honour to ask two young violinists from the Tórshavn Music School to play it with us there.

The last piece on the album also has a very personal story attached to it. Whilst I was staying in Unst in November 2016, one of the islanders gave me a copy of a piece by Adrian Vernon Fish, Uyeasound Nocturne. I knew of Adrian – in fact he was on my list of people to call at that time, as I knew he had a very strong connection to Greenland. Uyeasound Nocturne was originally written for viola and piano, but other colours rang out in my head and I arranged it for flute, 2 violas and contrabassoon. I’m very grateful to Adrian for allowing me to record it in this version. It’s a beautiful, melancholy piece and my fellow musicians, Helen, Dave and David, insisted that it should be a part of this album.

We’ll be heading into the recording studio in May and I can’t wait to update you on our progress. Make sure you sign up for updates on the subscribe button here so you don’t miss our release date, planned for next winter, appropriately enough for these northern tales.

Finally, I’d like to extend my thanks to Creative Scotland and the Vaughan Williams Foundation for supporting this venture, Sound Scotland for co-commissioning Anna Appleby’s Hrakningar, PRS Foundation’s Women Make Music for funding Aud by Linda Buckley, the St. Magnus Festival Composers’ Course for giving Lillie Harris the time and support to compose “Elsewhen” and last, but absolutely not least, all of our wonderful supporters for their crowdfunding and concert attendances that have contributed to our funding. We’re looking forward to sharing our recording journey with all of you.

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

Changing perspectives, new ways of working and some valuable help from the RPS Enterprise Fund in Association with Harriet’s Trust

A reflective post today looking back on the initial shock of the music world closing down in March 2020 and how, with a little bit of help from the RPS Enterprise Fund in association with Harriet’s Trust, Nordic Viola found new and exciting ways of working and of reaching our audiences around Scotland, the North Atlantic and beyond.

Entering the pandemic and a crash course in digital production

As covid began its grip on the world, Nordic Viola were just on the verge of travelling to Shetland for the University of the Highlands and Islands‘ “Histories and Herstories” Conference. I remember sitting on stage with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as we entered lockdown wondering how my project, formed in travel, could ever survive such a thing. But musicians are resourceful people and our project was very quickly repurposed to become a digital concert for the Orkney International Science Festival instead.

But where to begin? I could make rudimentary recordings but I was clueless about video. Step in Creative Scotland who provided me with top notch support and encouraged me to aim high and work with a top quality video professional. And so began what would become a fruitful partnership with Craig Sinclair Video.

Me and my team of wonderful and resourceful musicians (violinists Emily Nenniger, Anne Bünemann and cellist Ruth Rowlands) swiftly learned to record in our own homes and Craig and I set about interviewing composers online before Craig offered us remote support to film our own performances which he then pieced together with stock footage of the North Atlantic region (filming his own footage being forbidden in lockdown!).

And so our first digital concert was born.

A world opens up

Very quickly I learned that, far from being the end of Nordic Viola, this was actually a new beginning. Touring abroad is an expensive business, environmentally as well as financially, but now we had a way of reaching audiences far and wide from the safety and comfort of our own homes. Not only that, but I had a way for the composers to speak directly to audiences, putting a face and a personality behind the music.

So far, so good, but using professionals for every short piece of video is an expensive business. I needed to learn how to make my own content, saving my financial resources for larger-scale performances, and I needed better equipment to do it. Step in the Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Fund. This amazing organisation exists to create opportunities for musicians to excel and champions the vital role that music plays in everybody’s lives. They are a relatively small organisation with a very big heart indeed. The RPS Enterprise Fund offered individual performers and chamber music groups the means to strengthen and transform the extent of their creativity, connectivity, profile and revenue, encouraging us to think entrepreneurially.

Sagas and Seascapes

Following on from our first collaboration with Orkney International Science Festival, in 2021 we embarked on a much more ambitious project, Sagas and Seascapes. This project brought in many professionals from other fields and involved the creation of artwork for the project from Orla Stevens. Hedd Morfett-Jones and Simon Lowden from the RSNO recorded our performances in Glasgow and Craig was able to do his own filming on location in Orkney with me and the composers. It seemed the perfect project for me to take as a basis for developing my own technical skills.

Informal learning

The first part of my learning was to watch the professionals at work. I learned how Hedd ran a recording a session, how audio and video worked together and and picked Hedd and Craig’s brains about equipment and software.

On-location in Orkney, I happily handed over the reins of project management to Craig and watched how he pre-interviewed the composers, planned a shoot and managed the team on location.

Sagas and Seascapes was an ambitious programme and I learned a fair bit about people-management, too, as everything came together and deadlines needed to be met! After a week of working through the night, adrenaline was running high as Sags and Seascapes premiered at the science festival!

New microphones!

Meanwhile, my new microphones and audio interface were proving their worth. I was literally 24 hours away from performing live at the Scottish Awards for New Music when I got pinged! And so, as I awaited my PCR result, I got down to recording Eddie McGuire‘s Legend and Electra Perivolaris‘ Geese Flying Over My Head and into the Distance in audio and video. Without this equipment, I’d have lost a fee and left New Music Scotland with a gap to fill on very short notice. Thank you RPS!

Video Training Course

With the year’s big project in the bag, it was time to learn more formally from Craig how to produce my own small-scale video. Craig devised a 4-part course covering pre-production, filming, editing and distribution. Following an intense 4-hour online session where I learned how to identify the needs of my audience, plan my filming and interviewing and set up my camera properly, we moved onto the fun part – filming!

I wanted the session to produce something engaging and useful to myself and others, so we decided to invite our project artist, Orla Stevens, along, so that we could learn together and also produce a film that we could both use to publicise our work.

In the editing session, I learned so much about working quickly and efficiently with my material. I moved from randomly grabbing bits of material and putting it together in a haphazard way to learning to plan the shape of my video, gather together the material in advance and really tell a story. I also learned just how much B-Roll film you need to cover an interview – thanks to Craig for letting me use some of his Orkney footage and to Orla for filming the paintings! Baby steps, but I’m secretly very pleased with my first “proper” little film.

What I learned and where we go from here!

There were so many things I learned along the path from having absolutely no idea where to start with producing a video concert to taking on a project with the scope of Sagas and Seascapes and, finally, making my own tiny outdoor filming project and interview.

Here are my takeaways:

• Record absolutely everything – you never know when you might need it!
• Invest in quality equipment, especially microphones – it really does make a difference
• For big, important digital projects, employ professionals – it’s worth the money
• BUT don’t be afraid to try new things yourself – it’s fun, you learn a lot and make new connections
• Share with your colleagues. Knowing I was part of a group of musicians handpicked by the RPS for their enterprising attitude was empowering and inspiring and gave me the confidence to go for it
• Help others – I hope I can continue that sharing with my close colleagues, helping with equipment and sharing my experiences from working with such an amazing team of creative people.

And a few useful links for my Scottish colleagues in particular:

Craig Sinclair Video – first and foremost if you need someone to produce film for you, but also for some top-notch tuition and mentoring!

Chamber Music Scotland’s Resources for Musicians and in particular Tim Cooper‘s Audio Recording Resources

Sound Scotland – This innovative new music organisation does much to encourage creativity amongst musicians and also offers support and new opportunities through peer group meetings such as their fortnightly Cofveve sessions.

New Music Scotland – organisation supporting composers and performers working in New Music – training sessions, resources, a meeting point.

Book: Recording Classical Music by Robert Toft – Published by Routledge

June update – Sagas and Seascapes Recording, Competition and a Live Concert!

The end of May saw Nordic Viola playing together under the same roof for the first time since March 2020! And what a way to start, bringing our new commission, “Aud” by Linda Buckley, to life for the first time as we recorded “Sagas and Seascapes” for Orkney International Science Festival 2021. It’s always an amazing feeling to realise a new work and I love that collaborative process of working with a composer as we work together to unite the concepts of what they imagined as they created the music and how we interpret those dots as performers.

Covid made that experience slightly unusual as we went straight into the recording studio with “Aud” and still haven’t heard the complete score. I’m on absolute tenterhooks whilst Linda and our amazing recording team, Hedd Morfett-Jones and Simon Lowden work their magic and unite musicians with the electronic soundtrack.

Already the music has such a strong sense of journeying, depicting as it does Aud the Deep-Minded‘s journey from Ireland via Caithness, Orkney, and the Faroes before settling in Iceland. There is so much energy in the shifting textures and a sense of the music “flickering” through the distinct timbres of the three string instruments and the clarinet. It’s easy to think of string instruments as one body, but Linda’s writing really highlights how the colour of each pitch can vary across the three instruments.

There’s also a strong sense of yearning in the music – perhaps for that very human desire to be on the move and to explore that so many of us have missed during lockdown.

UK premiere of new Faroese work

We are also extremely grateful to the Aura Duo for allowing us to give the UK premiere of upcoming Faroese composer Eli Tausen á Lava’s Søgnin um Kópakonuna í 10 Myndum

Søgnin um Kópakonuna í 10 Myndum (Faroese: the Legend of the Seal Woman in 10 Pictures) is inspired by a set of 10 drawings by Faroese artist Edward Fuglø, which were originally drawn for the 2007 stamp issue titled Kópakonan (the Seal Woman).

Edward Fuglø’s drawings illustrate the Faroese legend of a female selkie, a mythological Ecapable of transforming from seal to human by shedding its skin, who is forced to live as a human when a young man from the village of Mikladalur steals her sealskin.

Søgnin um Kópakonuna í 10 Myndum was commissioned by Aura Duo and was composed with the support of Koda Kultur. The piece was due to be premiered in the Faroes in 2020/1 but has had to be postponed due to Covid. We’ll be introducing Eli and the Aura Duo to you in August.

Elsewhen by Lillie Harris

In our biggest ensemble to date, we recorded Lillie Harris‘ “Elsewhen” an incredibly eery, almost primitive at times (think stomping, Rite-of-Spring-style chords) depiction of Orkney’s prehistoric monuments and how they have come to us through time. “Elsewhen” is written for flute, clarinet and string quartet and, as well as its eery textures and footstamping rhythms, it features yearning melodies in the wind instruments and violins.

Lillie is an old friend of Nordic Viola, writing my first commission, “AND” for solo viola. She has an uncanny way of capturing the essence of a place, sometimes prior to even visiting it. “Elsewhen” was originally composed for the St. Magnus Composers’ Course in 2017.

As well as our audio team, we had Craig Sinclair working on video and Matthew Smith on lighting and, as you can see above, they created a stunning stage for us to work on. We consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to record in the RSNO’s purpose-built New Auditorium.

Filming in Orkney

Craig is now in the driving seat as the composers, Linda Buckley, Lillie Harris and Gemma McGregor head to Orkney to capture footage of the landscapes, monuments and tales that inspired their music. Craig and I first worked together on “Histories and Herstories” during lockdown last year. Despite being reliant on stock footage, I loved how he matched the rhythm of the music with film and I’m eager to see how much more can be done when he is set free to film on location.

In another first for us, the emotions of the composers as they explore these historic sites and experience the nature and seascapes of Orkney will be captured and interpreted by landscape artist Orla Stevens. Orla, too is fascinated by seastories and landscapes and often captures the energy of the sea in paintings with a considerable textural element to them. She is also a keen musician and is interested in exploring the parallels between rhythm in music and art. I’m very excited and intrigued to see how she interprets these musical worlds.

Seastories Competition

We’re at the halfway point in our Seastories Competition. We’ve received some very imaginative entries from Shetland, the Faroes and Greenland. Last Saturday Gemma McGregor led our first international zoom workshop alongside myself and Faroese trombonist and, on this occasion, interpreter, Dávur Juul Magnussen.

We explored ways of creating music about the sea and the techniques we could use to expand our musical ideas. We also took time to share our experiences of the sea in our home countries and explored common stories, such as legends across the North Atlantic about seals, and also explored Norse words that have survived in dialect in the Northern Isles. At a time when travel is nigh on impossible, I hope we were able to help the young people imagine a world beyond their own shores and to connect with others whose cultures overlap with ours.

We’ll announce our competition winners next week.

Live in Orkney

I’ll leave you with a wee teaser – whilst I’m in Orkney, I’ll be performing in a programme entitled “Birds and Landscapes of the North” with composer Gemma McGregor on flute. We’re in Stromness Town Hall on Friday 2nd July at 7:30pm and you can buy tickets here. Tickets are strictly limited due to Covid, so you need to book in advance.

More on the programme next time.

As you can see, there’s a lot happening with Nordic Viola at the moment. If you want to stay up-to-date, you can subscribe here:

Finally, I’d like to thank our funders: Creative Scotland, PRSF Women Make Music for supporting Linda Buckley, The Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Fund for allowing me to learn more about video alongside Craig Sinclair and the William Syson Foundation for supporting our education work.

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