Once again Scotland’s most inimitable contemporary music ensemble, Red Note, are bringing their unique brand of music and performance to Scotland. Read more …
John Adam’s brilliant Shaker Loops for single strings and Gavin Bryars’ evocative Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet have been paired with Doonies Hill Antiphon - an exclusive new Red Note/sound Festival commission for Gabriel Jackson.
Dedicated to developing and performing interesting and significant contemporary music, co-directors John Harris and Robert Irvine are, this autumn, celebrating classic minimalism, an underground music scene that started in the early 1960’s in San Francisco and New York and then soon became the most popular experimental music style of the late 20th century.
Winner of the 2009 BASCA British Composer Award and composer in residence of the BBC Singers, Gabriel Jackson said: "Over the last few years I have been fortunate to enjoy many fruitful relationships with Scottish musicians and artists, and so I am very excited about this collaboration with Red Note. I am particularly thrilled to be working again with Robert Irvine, who I met on our first day at the Royal College of Music in London, and who premiered one of my first pieces as a student.”
“The title - Doonies Hill Antiphon - refers to three of my particular preoccupations: the poetry and magic of names, the technological miracle and heroism of aviation, and the ornate, endlessly mellifluous music of the early Tudor period. I was thinking a lot about the Battle of Britain when planning this piece, and Doonies Hill in Aberdeen was the name (and site) of an RAF radar station, serving to protect the people of Eastern Scotland from attack. Stringed instruments are surely closest to the human voice, and the piece, with its alternation of duos and trios with extended tuttis, of folk-fiddling filigree and ecstatic polyphony, is a kind of secular votive antiphon.”
John Harris, co-artistic director of Red Note, said: “It’s so exciting to be performing these fabulous pieces alongside Gabriel’s new commission. Gabriel is one of the brightest stars writing music in the UK at the moment, his career is taking off worldwide, and we’re thrilled to be playing our part in his success by being the first to play his new work. ”
The Red Note autumn tour will give audiences witnessing these pieces close up for the first time a powerful experience. The music doesn’t pull any emotional punches, it is stunningly virtuosic to play, and enthralling to watch and listen to. Expect an intense, magical musical experience.
The piece itself worked a strange kind of magic as the instrumentalists gradually came onstage to colour in the pretty ropey singing of the old tramp transforming the recording into something intensely moving and ultimately quite beautiful.
Red Note Ensemble are simply outstanding, and not to be missed.
On Tour, from Wednesday October 20, 2010, until Friday October 22, 2010.
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