Midsummer update: Tales of Arctic exploration, whales and more!

Thank you to everyone who came to the premiere of The Pilgrim’s Path by Gemma McGregor at St. Magnus International Festival. It was lovely to see the cathedral so full and to play this piece, so firmly rooted in Orkney’s history and connected also to the recently formed St Magnus Way. I’m sure there’ll be many future performances of this beautiful piece.

As a nice little footnote, I hadn’t realised that there’s a cycle version of The St. Magnus Way and, quite by accident, I cycled all but the Orphir spur during my week in Orkney!

I’ll be back in Orkney in September for the International Science Festival, one of a series of events over late summer and early autumn where I’ll be working again with clarinettist and improviser Alex South and poet Lesley Harrison.

I’ll also be heading to Ireland in August to work with composer Karen Power. Throughout all these events run themes of whales, the sea and the Arctic.

Keening – Song of the Stranding

Next week I travel to the Isle of Lewis as part of Keening – Song of the Stranding, the project I wrote about in my last blog. This is a multidisciplinary art project commemorating a whale stranding on Traigh Mhòr Beach north of Stornaway in 2023. It’s a massive project run by artist Sam Gare of North Harris Studio and it’s well underway as I write, with workshops and the collection of testimonies from the community. The musicians Alex South, Nerea Bello and I, plus movement artist Aya Kobayashi, join Sam on 12th July for a collective day of remembrance on Traigh Mhòr beach honouring the 55 long-finned pilot whales who stranded there. Join us as we create sand sculptures of the whales, accompanied by live music shaped by their voices. As the tide returns, the sculptures will be gently reclaimed by the sea. https://www.northharrisstudio.co.uk/keening

Arctic/Antarctic Residency in Ireland

A couple of weeks later I head to County Cork in Ireland to work alongside composer Karen Power. I’ve previously performed Karen’s Sonic Cradle at soundfestival in Aberdeen and Arctic Science Summit Week in Edinburgh and it’s such an honour to have been invited by Karen to work alongside her on a new piece drawn from recent journeys to Antarctica and the Arctic. Karen’s approach to music is a quiet one and focuses around deep listening and a curiosity about sound. Like me, she has a connection going back over 10 years with the Arctic and is disturbed by the changes happening at such a rapid pace caused by climate change.

I strongly recommend listening to Karen’s most recent recording: https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/we-return-to-ground

Performances of the new work will follow in the autumn and I’ll keep you updated as things develop.

These two projects are supported by

The Voyage of the Fox and CETACEA in Orkney

The final set of summer performances combine whales and the Arctic. I’ll be returning to Orkney International Science Festival with old friends: poet Lesley Harrison and, once again, Alex South, where we’ll present “The Voyage of the Fox” at Kirkwall Theatre on 9th September (details to follow when the full programme is announced at OISF). This performance is based on Lesley Harrison’s eponymous poem, which traces the journey of Captain McClintock to the Arctic aboard “The Fox” in search of the lost Franklin voyage. Originally composed for Arbroath 2020+1, this performance melds improvisation on viola, clarinet and electronics, old folk tunes from Shetland and Arctic field recordings with Lesley’s powerfully descriptive words.

Here’s a taster of the music:

We will also be performing one of our most popular pieces, CETACEA, set to film of pilot whales by Alexander and Nicole Gratovsky. CETACEA was inspired by Lesley’s poem of the same name and incorporates her musical words, which inspired our playing, onscreen. Here’s the audio – we’ll save the film for the day! Meanwhile, if you want to purchse Lesley’s collections “Disappearnce” and “Kitchen Music” which contain these two poems, then click here for more information: https://lesleyharrisonpoetry.com/about/

Performance in Dunblane

If you live in Central Scotland and aren’t able to get to Orkney, then we have a very special, intimate preview performance of Voyage of The Fox and CETACEA in The Weigh Ahead Gallery in Dunblane on Sunday 31st August at 6pm. This lovely, intimate space seats just 15 people, so make sure you book your tickets well in advance. If you miss the boat (so to speak!), then please do put yourself on the waiting list as we will run a second show on demand at 8pm if there are sufficient numbers. Tickets available now from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-voyage-of-the-fox-tickets-1454880770549

We are very grateful for funding support for these performances from the Hinrichsen Foundation and from the Cockaigne Fund, administered by Foundation Scotland.