Exploring Music and Landscapes: Nordic Viola’s Winter Adventures

I’ve had an incredible summer and autumn with Nordic Viola. I’ve been lucky enough to work on projects with Gemma McGregor (The Pilgrim’s Path at St. Magnus International Festival), Sam Gare, Alex South, Nerea Bello and Aya Kobayashi (Keening – Song of the Stranding) and Karen Power (polar soundings at soundfestival).

_{Photo Credits: Lisa Robertson, Phil Hall, Karen Power}

In between those, Nordic Viola presented The Voyage of the Fox and CETACEA at Orkney International Science Festival alongside poet Lesley Harrison, who conceived the project back in 2020, and co-composer Alex South.

After all that activity, it’s been lovely to kick back early this winter and to have some time to travel for travel’s sake, always with my ears wide open, of course! I’ll show you more of these beautiful places later, but first of all, let me tell you about two concerts happening in early 2026.

Winter Concerts in Iceland and Dunblane

-the new forest- at Harpa, Reykjavík

I’m very excited to once again be showcasing -the new forest- by Charles Ross on the international stage. I’ll be performing it in Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavík on 31^st January at Myrkir Músíkdagar (Dark Music Days). More information and tickets here. I’ll also be joining Charles’ Ensemble Stelkur for a new comprov piece by Charles called Ditch Gramophone. Comprov is Charles’ term for pieces that are structured and determined by the composer but leave open an element of improvisation for the performers. Charles is one of the best and most inventive improvisers I’ve ever worked with and I always feel I learn so much from working with him, so this is going to be a fantastic and enjoyable week of music-making.

The Pilgrim’s Path at Dunblane Cathedral

The other winter performance is Gemma McGregor’s The Pilgrim’s Path on 8^th February 2026 at 3:30pm in Dunblane Cathedral in a concert hosted by Dunblane Cathedral Arts Guild. “The Pilgrim’s Path” was premiered at the St. Magnus International Festival in June this year.

A suite of 6 pieces for flute and viola, it tells the story of St. Magnus whilst tracing the course of the St. Magnus Way in Orkney. Gemma’s music is so firmly rooted in Orkney’s history and landscape and I love how the music represents bird calls, the sound of the sea, ancient chant and the emotions of Magnus himself. The music is joined together with words from Orcadian historian Sheila Garson and Gemma herself. I know a lot of our audiences in and around Dunblane share my deep affection and connection with Orkney and you will really enjoy this evocative and immediately charming music, so mark the date in your diary now!

Winter journeys

I promised to tell you more about my winter travels, first of all to Shetland and then to Shieldaig in the West Highlands of Scotland.

Shetland

As many of you know, Shetland is a very special place to me. It’s played a big part in my life since I first spent a month there at the very start of Nordic Viola’s journey back in 2016. The last time I was there was April 2024 when I was developing Arctic Edgelands for Nordic Music Days 2024 with Arnannguaq Gerstrøm and Renzo Spiteri.

I desperately needed to reconnect with the islands and so I hooked up with friend and artist Orla Stevens for a self-guided residency. It was Orla’s first visit to Shetland and I was eager to introduce her to the islands in winter when the light is so very special and it’s easy to be alone in the landscape.

North Isles – Yell and Unst

It turned out to be a very special week for me as the light and the weather were almost identical to my time there on sabbatical. It really felt like winding the clock back, especially as I found myself seeing the landscapes afresh as Orla experienced them for the first time. A particular highlight was spending the day in Unst and walking out to Hermaness and Muckle Flugga. We drove through the morning twilight up to the North Isle ferries and sunrise didn’t occur until we arrived in Yell. And what a spectacle it was: the fresh snow on Ronas Hill lit up in pastel pinks by the dawn light, deep blue sea and the russet reds of the moorlands. So beautiful that we pulled in to sketch for a while – one of us rather more professionally than the other, yet what I love about being around Orla is that there is no judgement, just a desire to enable everyone to observe and draw what moves them.

Unst

Arriving in Unst was special – so many memories of staying in Baltasound in winter. Unst is such a different landscape: you really know you’ve arrived in the Far North and, just in case we had forgotten, there was a sprinkling of snow on the road. The landscape looks more barren and windswept, almost tundra-like and the light is so low. Every blade of grass is picked out in the sun, the colours are rich and golden with long, long shadows and the sea is a deep blue. But then a passing hail shower can just render the whole landscape in black and white – equally beautiful in its stark simplicity.

Collecting sounds

Hermaness, somewhat unusually, was almost windless and we could easily spend plenty of time sketching (Orla) and making sound recordings (me). This is something that has really developed in my practice since those early days back in 2016. Working with Renzo Spiteri, Pete Stollery and Karen Power has taught me how to really listen in to what’s around me. I’ve become fascinated by how much music there is in the land and sea as well as in our human interactions with nature – whether these be for better or worse. I’m still learning how to record effectively and then how to shape those sounds in my work and this was a big focus for this residency in Shetland. I wanted to give myself time, with no fixed goal, to experiment, try out new microphones and find out what works well – as well as what doesn’t! Sometimes the sounds might go directly into my music, sometimes they’ll just be a source of inspiration.

On this particular day, I was struck by the depth and strength of the sound of the sea pounding the bottom of the cliffs below, providing a deep bass rumble and foundation to the foreground noise of a little moorland stream tumbling off the cliffs. In the distance the fulmars chattered on their nests. A vicious passing hailstorm rattled off our microphones, paper and jackets, making us giggle.

Our day ended with sunset on Uyeasound beach. Peaches, pinks and soft blues and the gentle lapping of waves on the shore, so different from the powerful sound of the deep, churning sea at Hermaness.

It was a special week and one that will undoubtedly feed future work – it’s been a long time since I had the luxury of just soaking myself in a place like I did on sabbatical without any immediate pressure to produce work, just taking it in, experimenting and learning. A week that was perfectly summed up in this beautiful vlog from Orla.

Shieldaig, West Highlands

Sometimes you don’t appreciate just how much you’re learning, but after Shetland, my ability to capture sounds, especially with my new microphones, had markedly moved on when I got to Shieldaig, a small village tucked away down a sea fjord on Scotland’s west coast. Actually, this trip was meant to be purely a holiday, but it proved to be so rich in sound and so inspiring a place to be that I couldn’t resist capturing some of its amazing sounds and found that I was doing so far more successfully than I had in Shetland.

Nordic Viola seems increasingly to be flirting with the west coast of Scotland with On A Wing and A Prayer – Morvern with Lisa Robertson and then Keening – Song of the Stranding over on the Isle of Lewis in July this year. Less obviously marked by Norse culture than Orkney and Shetland, the Norsemen nonetheless left their mark along this western coast. I didn’t know before that Shieldaig is a Gaelic corruption of Sildvík – herring bay! Used to seeing Gaelic placenames corrupted by the Norse and English, this one was a new one on me. And of course, the herring fisheries immediately bring to mind places like Baltasound and Fethaland in Shetland.

So whilst I was enjoying taking time out admiring the great snowy bulks of the Torridon mountains, I couldn’t help but be creatively inspired by this most beautiful of places and to record some of the incredible sounds around me as a violent winter storm raged. I’m quite sure that these wonderfully rich sounds will be finding their way into a performance before too long.

Last Minute Christmas Gifts and a project announcement coming soon!

There’s also a very big announcement coming in January about our new project where I’ll be working with a very exciting group of Scottish and Nordic composers on a project that spans the whole North Atlantic region. We’re still raising the last little bit of money for the project to enable our composers to travel to the first performance of their works and all sales between now and September will contribute to this new work. You can instantly gift a digital album from https://nordicviola.bandcamp.com/ and we have lots of beautiful merchandise at https://nordicviola.bandcamp.com/merch

Finally, make sure you subscribe to this blog to make sure you’re the first to hear about our new project.