Showing posts with label composer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composer. Show all posts

Friday, 31 January 2025

Dialogues Su a Lee at Mackintosh church Celtic Connections 2025

 



What a glorious setting for her rich, glowing tones and the depth of character on Su a Lee’s cello! The concert explored Lee’s astute journey of her compelling musicianship and celebrating her collaboration work with Duncan Chisholm, one of Scotland's most revered fiddlers, celebrated multi-instrumentalist/composer/producer Donald Shaw, and husband and composer Hamish Napier. The cream of Celtic musicians Lee’s work ranges from classical, experimental and folk traditions.


The Concert

Lee explored her years playing the rhythmic drive of Scottish traditional music within the landscapes of classical music. She performed tracks from her album Dialogues 2023, including mostly original compositions. She was accompanied by pianists Hamish Napier and Donald Shaw and violinist Duncan Chisholm. (Shaw is also Celtic Connections festival director since 2006). 

Tonight rather than the fiddle or voice centre stage, it was the deep tones and dynamic range of the cello. Lee began with a poignant cello solo of Burns ‘Ae fond Kiss’, followed by the emotive drama of Donald Shaw’s Baroque suite, with three dance forms and a slow air – ‘Baroque March Mull’, ‘Cathedral of Trees’, ‘Malpica’ ‘Ocean Poem’. As well as performing Shaw’s renowned music ‘Islands on the Edge’.


“Shaw’s tunes are all bangers” she exclaimed! Her welcome and informed chat between sets added a personal note. With violin and cello, we were treated to Chisholm’s poignant slow airs ‘Prince Charlie’s Last View’ and ‘Precious Place’. Also Phil Cunningham’s ‘The Wedding Celebration’. Hamish Napier’s joyful strathspeys and reels on piano, flute and cello, with ‘John Stephens of Chance In’ and ‘Windsong’. All four musicians performed a moving Gaelic song ‘Mo Rùn Geal Òg’, (sung by Julie Fowlis on the album)They finished this lovely concert with the energy of upbeat tunes such as ‘The Wound and the Gift’.

Su a Lee celebrates her many collaborations. This wasn’t a concert about Lee’s classical music roots (via the New York’s Julliard school) but about her journey through Scottish musical traditions and it’s innovative new directions. The cello is the original Scottish folk rhythm section, long before guitar or piano and is now enjoying a revival through artists like Su-a Lee. The leading fiddle players of their day, Neil Gow and Peter Milne, had cellists that toured with them. Lee is a lead cellist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 


The Album:  Her album Dialogues (2023) is about her musical connections from this expressive musician, with her accomplished fellow musicians. While Lee has played on many albums over her thirty year career, this is her first solo album of 15 compositions. Dialogues is both grounded in traditions and new compositions: exploring Scottish traditional music from reels and strathspeys, slow ballads and Gaelic song ending with the solo setting of her Burns Ae Fond Kiss. 

"As much as this album is about finding my own voice and a voice for Scottish folk cello, it is also about the interaction of two voices…..Welcome to our dialogue." Su-a Lee

(Sometimes if not often) culture leads the way for new visions. And new collaborations of how to view the world today and how our futures might be. Celtic Connections shines a light on this vision, after all music is the universal language. Her work ranges from classical, experimental, folk traditional. 




Su-a Lee is a cellist born is Seoul, South Korea and resident in Scotland. She is known for her wide-ranging collaborations across classical, contemporary, jazz and Scottish traditional music. Through her prolific career as lead cellist in groups like the Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Mr McFall’s Chamber Su-a has constantly explored the role of the cello in folk & world traditions.

Hamish Napier is a folk musician, composer and tutor who taught Stagecraft on the Trad Music degree course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for many years; Merryn Glover is a writer, workshop leader and storyteller, with a teaching degree in English, drama & dance.

Duncan Chisholm is a Scottish fiddle player and composer. He has released seven solo albums as a solo artist. His studio album, Affric 2012, was longlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award. In 2022, he released a seventh studio album, titled Black Cuillin. He tours with the Scottish Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis band. He is also a founder member of the folk rock group Wolfstone, He played fiddle for Runrig. .

 

Donald Shaw,  is a Scottish award winning musician, composer, producer, and one of the founding members of Capercaillie Shaw has composed for film and TV. In 2004, he composed Harvest, a commission for the opening night of Celtic Connections festival. He won the Scots Trad Music Composer of the Year award in December 2006.



CC Mackintosh Church Setlist

1.  Ae Fond Kiss 

2.  Baroque Suite
(i) Baroque March Mull (ii) Cathedral of Trees (iii) Malpica
 (iv) Ocean Poem 


3.  EbytheC 


4.  F Strathspey Set
(i) John Stephen of Chance In (ii) Windsong 

5.  Duncan Slow Airs
i) Prince Charlie’s Last View (ii) Precious Place 

6.  Water Set
(i) The Dance 
(ii) Waltz of the Grey River (iii) Corryvreckan 

7.  Bach Bourrées 


8.  Mo Rùn Geal Òg Instr 

9.   Donald’s Set 
(i) Madame Lulu
(ii) Islands on the Edge 

10. Hamish Tune Set 

(i) Bagh Seannabhad (ii) Speyside Line 

11. Paths Finale Set 

(i) Phillippa’s Tune (ii) Josianne
(iii) Speyside Way (iv) The Deer Path 

Encore The Wound and the Gift   62 mins   6 mins applause 

Su-a, Duncan, Donald, Hamish 



Wednesday, 30 June 2021

HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY BOB!

 

HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY BOB! 

 

A bit late - my favourite Dylan songs - Visions of Joanna, If not for You, Make you Feel my Love, Tangled up in Blue, Tambourine Man. So many questioning, ironic, layered, story telling songs. Thanks Bob. Good to be alive in the times of our Bard.

 

.. oh yes things have changed alright...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo





Wednesday, 31 January 2018

Max Richter at Celtic Connections 2018


A night to remember!
Max Richter, renowned composer for stage and screen, performed his eighth album of classical and electronic sound, Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works (2017) at Celtic Connections 2018.

The music is from the score that Richter composed for the ballet Woolf Works in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and includes a recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. The work follows a three-part structure offering evocations of three books by Woolf (Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves).

Richter played on piano and electronic keys along with the world class Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) at Glasgow concert hall. There were slow, nurturing bass lines along with a repeating piano melancholy, questioning violin, pondering cello and electronic beats. 
Then a violin menace as danger lurks, electronica beats too and a plaintive solitary cello repeated the forlorn melody. A sad xylophone played slow notes to release the tension, let it fly and brought us back to a more hopeful sound. 

 A bell tolled as we heard Woolf’s hesitant and strange voice speak of her memories, before she gave up words and life, ‘No one could have been happier.’ Then the poignant piano melody returned with waves in the background. And after in a powerful moment, there were mournful crescendos with the haunting soprano voice of Grace Davidson.


His music is at times pioneering, aching, immersive and searching for resolutions. The stage was lit over the performance with a flow of colours from soft purple to deep reds. For a Reprise Richter performed a short piece entitled ‘On the Nature of Daylight’.  A truly memorable concert. The performance was opened by harpist Catriona McKay and Alastair MacDonald with tales of Scottish times past.

Review and Photos by Pauline Keightley - http://pkimage.co.uk/
Richter is a British composer post-minimalist with contemporary and alternative musical styles with films such as Testament of Youth, Arrival, Miss Sloane.
**Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works (2017Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works is Max Richter’s eighth album, released in January 2017. The music is taken from the score that Richter composed for the ballet Woolf Works in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor at the royal Opera House in London. The work follows a three-part structure offering evocations of three books by Woolf (Mrs DallowayOrlando, and The Waves). The album features classical and electronic sound as well as an original voice recording of Virginia Woolf herself.

Sunday, 24 September 2017

'Framing the Arts' with Alan Riach Edinburgh book festival (EIBF 2017)

Sandy Moffat, Alan Riach, John Purser
'Framing The Arts' - Three elder statesmen of the Arts in Scotland – with Professor Alan Riach, Painter Sandy Moffat, Musician and composer John Purser, gave a talk at Edinburgh international Book festival 2017.
"Arts at the heart of life in Scotland and the cultural history of literature, painting, and music."

"ARTS and the NATION" - There were limited copies of their new book and I have just received my copy via Amazon. It is a great read so far and i highly recommend to anyone who sees the importance of the arts in shaping our society to a more caring and compassionate one. The arts are first about our humanity. 

LITERATURE
They spoke of the reconstruction by the Arts for a new vision of Scotland that are totally different in nature than the national movement of fascists, and that the Scottish arts are not focused inwards at all. Also the opening up of the arts to the young in order to move ideas forwards. They discussed places like the Abbotsford bar, which were once physical meeting places and gave connections for artists and journalists back in the 50s.
Professor Raich spoke of his two page spread in the National newspaper, that day with no adds or interference, and he said that the writing was of a very high standard.

Scots always look outward with their Arts and festivals, but we need, as these respected artists state, to also understand and know our own heritage and stories - and to look inside our own house too. Scotland does not want to leave Europe (or England) – but also there are strong movements to reconnect to Scottish stories, cross borders, and to open windows on Scotland’s arts.

*MUSIC
John Purser, composer an writer 
Until recently, Scots had no knowledge of Scottish classical music, composers or Scottish folk music. Scottish theatre, folk music, pipe music, and classical music were neglected – which has led to a cultural destruction. Purser spoke of the Scottish Music archive.
He said all students at Glasgow’s RCS (The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) had studied in Europe, and that music is of course  international. They were instructed never to look within the house and always asked to look outward! It is scandalous that those who graduate know nothing of their own country’s heritage. Purser told a story of a young girl studying for her music higher, she was part of the travelling peoples and felt she lacked musical knowledge, but said that she made reeds for her uncle’s pipes. He told her that she probably knew more of Scottish music than those studying at the colleges!
John Purser
*ART
Painter Moffat said they were starting to take the Scottish art out of the basement at the National galleries.
Scottish Artists - Raeburn, Ramsay, David Willkie, Glasgow Boys, JD Fergusso., He said that Scottish artists won’t leave Europe. The highly respected art critic John Bellamy was mentioned. Scots are very poorly educated in our Scots history and arts.

They all spoke of the aim to build a grassroots audience for arts and not only an elite audience. (1934 SNP established.) The modern Scot world of reconstruction; the Montrose Renaissance which was then the equivalent of Paris in the 30s and was led by the revolutionary poet Hugh MacDiarmid, a co-founder of the SNP.


I agree with all of this. I was educated in Edinburgh and learned nothing of Scottish history, heritage, arts or music! I mean nothing here!  Even though I studied Art, History and English Highers and went on to teaching!  (Now I am older I am teaching myself Scottish heritage!) I did learn English heritage though, of the Tudors and Shakespeare. 
  
BOOK – ‘ARTS AND THE NATION’ - To engage in the recovery of neglected Scottish composers, artists and writers, locating them in an international context.
As the poet Hugh MacDiarmid wrote, artists must be both national and international. Perhaps in our fast moving Digital age there is a strong desire to reconnect to permanence, to traditions and to those lasting stories...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arts-Nation-Alexander-Moffat/dp/1912147106


MEDIA ?? (PS  There was no mention of Digital, Media, TV or film – and how Scots can access their own and international arts via the new platforms. For young people they want diverse ease of access via many mediums and that’s how they access their news also. They want control, which is a good thing.
The new film, tv studio at the Pentlands is welcome new and long overdue. Scotland first tv channel will air in autumn 2018! it’s a scandal. (both Wales and Northern Ireland have studios with the massive Game of Thrones film in Northern Ireland.) Good news is that both the recent success of Outlander and T2, have brought recognition to Scotland.Other regions such as Catalonia, has Five TV channels.