Sea, Saints, Waves and Whales

Nordic Viola’s summer season in a nutshell – or perhaps a coracle! I’ll be travelling from Orkney to the Isle of Lewis and back to Orkney again in partnership with musicians and artists who are good friends, longtime collaborators and people who share Nordic Viola’s interests and values. I’ll be learning from how they formulate their ideas whilst cooking up a big new project from Nordic Viola in 2026.

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The Pilgrim’s Path at St. Magnus International Festival

First stop will be Orkney where, on 25^th June I’ll be joining flautist and composer Gemma McGregor to perform her cycle of St. Magnus pieces, The Pilgrim’s Path for flute and viola interspersed by readings on the St. Magnus performed by Sheila Garson.

I’m really proud that Nordic Viola commissioned the first of these pieces inspired by the St. Magnus Way and the life of Orkney’s patron Saint. Gemma and I premiered Carry His Relics in Mareel, Shetland, back in 2019. What is now the first part, On the Trysted Shore, followed as a commission from Orkney Arts in 2021 and holds particularly fond memories for me as it was our first live performance after Covid. I remember the air of excitement in the hall as we gathered to share music together for the first time in over a year – letting go of the nervousness of performing love again after so long and just loving connecting to people through music again.

Over the spring, Gemma has been walking the St. Magnus Way herself and it’s been lovely to learn about the inspiration behind the new pieces and to see her beautiful pictures: the golden wash of dawn, the wide horizons over the sea. The music is permeated by the sound of the sea and seabirds, the calls of the shorebirds and, always, the gentleness of St. Magnus himself. You can follow Gemma’s writing process on her Facebook page.

Tickets

The performance itself takes place in St. Magnus Cathedral on 25^th June at 9pm and tickets are available here. I absolutely love being in this remarkable building late on a summer solstice evening. It’s a place of stillness amidst the bustling festival and tourist crowds and the sandstone glows golden. It’ll be very special to perform there again

I’ll also be enjoying other performances at the Festival and soaking up the atmosphere on the campsite. Whenever I’ve performed in the Festival with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, I’ve loved that audience and performers can meet and chat on the campsite and in the bars. Friends are made and stories are shared.

Keening, Song of the Stranding

From the Northern to the Western Isles: the second project I’m a part of this summer commemorates the stranding of 55 pilot whales on Traigh Mhòr on Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland. It’s lead by artist Sam Gare of North Harris Studio and Alex South, clarinettist, composer and expert on whale song who I have worked with previously. We’re also joined by singer Nerea Bello and dance artist Aya Kobayashi.

There are so many facets to this wonderful production and the best place to get the full picture is on Sam’s project website, www.northharrisstudio.co.uk/keening. To summarise, after a series of community workshops where people can share their own recollections of the stranding, the focus will shift to the beach itself, where, accompanied by our music, people will be able to assist Sam in making sand casts from her stunning wooden structures. There will then be a performance in Tolsta Village Hall before we return to the beach at around 7pm to watch the sand whales being washed out on the high tide.

Creating the Music

Alex, Nerea and I have been developing the music since March. One of the things I enjoy about working with Alex is that each project is rooted in research: we actually spent our first full day learning about the events on 12^th July 2023. We also learned about the behaviour of pilot whales, including some of the theories as to why they may have stranded.  We then listened to pilot whale recordings, learning about how they call to each other and also the clicks they make when echo-locating.

Another thing we wanted to learn about was the Gaelic keening tradition Keening was a vocal, ritual artform, performed at the wake or graveside in mourning of the dead. Nerea comes from the Basque country which has a similar tradition. We learned about the traditional rituals for the dead in the Western Isles and looked at some of the old music associated with them.

New improvisations

It was only in the final hour of that first day that we started improvising. There’s always a slight air of anticipation/nervousness when a new group of musicians come together to improvise. Whilst Alex has worked with both Nerea and I before, it’s not a given that the three of us would gel. However, fortunately we do – extremely well. We discovered with delight that the wide ranges of our voices and instruments overlapped and contrasted well and that we all absolutely love playing with different registers and timbres. A good foundation to build on.

Developing the music further

There’s a common misconception that improvising means doing just what you like in the moment. Of course it can be that, it’s fun to do that and it’s usually the way (almost by definition) that an improvised programme starts out. Yet for me, and especially if you’re trying to tell a story/connect to a particular point in time, it’s important to have discipline and structure within the improvisation to convey what everyone needs to say properly and fairly and to ensure the music is coherent. Perhaps contrary to expectation, this provides space for everyone to create and, because the structure is solid, actually does away with the need for a hierarchy. I guess it’s a way of getting to know each other musically whilst creating respect and trust.

We therefore started our second section reflecting back on recordings of our very first improvisation session, respectfully discussing aspects we’d like to ķeep as we worked further.

After that, as a study, we worked with the scale from the Gaelic Keening song and also separated out the different embellishments in whale song, taking turns and then, as we felt more at home with the material , working more freely again as a trio.

You can get a flavour of some of the music we have created to date here:

https://on.soundcloud.com/Fn7BGYHQMrpWRJcx7

Introducing movement

Armed with a body of recordings from session two, which we’d whittled down to the most potent material, by session three we were in a good place to start building what will be our eventual pieces. We were joined in this session by our movement artist, Aya Kobayashi.

Aya brought another dimension to our work. For a start, I loved that she started with a physical warm-up. It brought us together as a group, woke our bodies up and helped us focus. Up until now we’ve focused on the music for its own sake, but Aya drew our focus to the function of the music, to how we will help the participants on the beach mourn the whales and, in fact, how our music will actually help draw the attention of people to where it needs to be at any given point in the proceedings.

All this gave an added poignancy to the music and, with Aya and, by the end of the afternoon, our podcasters Aoife Glass and Phil Hall, in the room, we were starting to get a real sense of performance. Very exciting to feel.

The art and related experiences

Of course the lead and impetus behind this project isn’t us, it’s artist Sam Gare of North Harris Studio. Whilst we’ve been working on the music, Sam has been making the beautiful wooden casts for the pilot whales and has been on site in Lewis figuring out how art, music and movement will come together on the beach on the day.

As well as researching the events of the stranding herself, Sam has been speaking to local people who experienced the event. There are also about to be school and community workshops in Lewis exploring what happened. Once we all arrive in Lewis, there will be a preparatory session where local people can rehearse the event with us. This isn’t at all compulsory but does offer a chance to people to really be a part of the performance.

The performance

On the day itself, 12^th July, we will be on the beach to make the whale casts and there will be an opportunity for everyone to take part as the music is performed. If you can’t make it to Traigh Mhòr, there’ll also be an installation and performance in Tolsta Hall. At the end of the day, we’ll return to the beach as our sand whales wash out on the tide.

More information

Of course my focus here is on the music. For much more information on the project, the events on 12th July and to find out more about lead artist Sam Gare visit the project website here: https://www.northharrisstudio.co.uk/keening

Come and join us!

So I hope this blog has piqued your interest about these two great projects and hopefully inspired you to join us in either Orkney or Lewis. It’s great for me to be working on other people’s projects and to learn different ways of leading work. I’m looking forward to taking some of what I’ve learned into a big new project for 2026-27 that’s in the planning stages.

Finally, a reminder of the relevant websites if you want to come to performances in Orkney (25^th June) https://stmagnusfestival.com/festival-programme-2025-draft-ii/31-pilgrims-path-gemma-mcgregor

or Lewis (12^th July). https://www.northharrisstudio.co.uk/keening

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