Recording of Orkney concert now online: John Rae and The Northern Telegraph Route

katherinewrentranslator,
A small musical ensemble performing on stage in a church setting, featuring six musicians playing various instruments, including a flute, clarinet, cello, and violin, with wooden architecture in the background.
Photo: Fleur Ward

Beautiful, immersive music from Nordic Viola tonight – had goosebumps and tears during the piece “Reach”. – Audience Member, Shetland

I am delighted to let you know that Nordic Viola and Aldubáran’s performance of John Rae and The Northern Telegraph Route at Orkney International Science Festival on 9th September is now available to listen to on soundcloud here.

If you would like to follow along with the concert programme, you can download it here

It will only  be available until 15th November, so make sure you don’t miss it! We are planning to tour it again, though, both within the UK and in the Faroe Islands and the wider North Atlantic area. If you’re interested in bringing the performance to your area, please do contact us here.

The four new works are:

Stuart MacRae – Communications – sextet

Eli Tausen á Lava – Reach – string quartet

Ailie Robertson – Skeins – clarinet quartet

Arnannguaq Gerstrøm .- / -… .- -.. / .. -.-. . / -.– . .- .-. “a bad ice year” – string quartet

Each piece had a distinctive take on the story, with some depicting the journey and the harsh landscapes that John Rae encountered on his 1860 expedition and others reflecting on the innermost feelings of the principal actors in the story from John Rae himself to his wife and family left at home. Descriptive, emotional, harsh, beautiful – each one absorbed you in its world.

You can still listen to the composers discussing their work in our podcasts.

The writing

Lesley Harrison’s poetry added another dimension, taking us on a journey from Clestrain Hall in Orkney (John Rae’s birthplace) to South Greenland. Taken from source materials recounting the original expedition as well as an English/Faroese phrasebook, her poems create atmosphere and recount John Rae’s own experiences.

Lesley wrote a wonderful piece for North Sea Poets on her experience of the concert in Orkney, which you can find here.

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Orkney International Science Festival

A woman with short gray hair stands at a podium speaking to an audience in a community hall, with attendees seated at tables listening attentively.
Jane Hamilton
A presentation in a hall featuring Dr. Fleur Ward FSAScot, with a screen displaying the title 'Where Might the Cables Have Run?' and an audience visible in the foreground.
Fleur Ward

Of course, being part of a festival is about so much more than your own performance. It’s about meeting new people and learning about their work and experiences. We were delighted too that our researcher, Dr. Fleur Ward, was able to give a talk on her work on John Rae and his 1860 expedition. Another highlight for me was meeting John Rae’s great-great grandniece, Jane Hamilton, and what an honour it was to have her in the audience for the concert.

Two women sitting at a wooden table in a cozy setting, one wearing a purple sweater and a teal shirt, engaged in conversation while the other looks on thoughtfully. A glass of beer is visible on the table.
Three men engaged in conversation at a pub, seated at a table with glasses of beer in front of them, in a warm, rustic interior.

The festival was also an opportunity for our whole team to finally meet in the flesh after so many international zoom meetings! Learning about each other’s cultures, work and way of life is so important and is where new artistic relationships are formed.

Shetland Concert

We had a wonderful time working with Aldubáran and, after a lovely smooth crossing from Orkney with our transport providers NorthLink, it was wonderful to also perform John Rae and The Northern Telegraph Route in Shetland Museum, this time joined by Donald Anderson to narrate Lesley’s poems.

A scenic view of a coastal village with colorful houses, green hills in the background, and a calm body of water in the foreground.
Close-up view of a polished stone surface displaying unique patterns and textures with shades of black, gray, and hints of white.
Close-up view of a mineral surface displaying shimmering, multicolored patterns with hints of pink, grey, and metallic flecks.

With the rehearsals behind us and a performance under our belts, we also had time to enjoy Shetland. I cycled over to Scalloway Museum, where I enjoyed learning more about Shetland’s geology and The Shetland Bus, a clandestine World War II special operations group that ran a secret naval lifeline across the North Sea between the Shetland Islands in Scotland and Nazi-occupied Norway from 1940 to 1945.

Our Faroese guests felt right at home in lashing rain and gales on the morning of the concert, whilst two of our number braved the Bressay Park Run, even taking the win – step up clarinettist Alex South!

Shetland Museum Concert

Audience seated indoors listening to a performance, with a view of a harbor through large windows.
A group of musicians standing together in a museum setting, dressed in black attire. They are holding various instruments, including violins, a cello, and a flute, with a stone structure in the background.

We were really privileged to play to a full house at Shetland Museum. Such a warm and welcoming audience of friends old and new and it was wonderful to be able to stay and talk to everyone afterwards in one of my favourite, intimate venues. It’s these conversations that open up new ideas that lead on to new projects and I so value being able to meet everyone at our performances and learn about what drew them to the performance, whether it be an interest in music, an interest in 19th Century telegraph construction or the wider context of culture and history in the Northern Atlantic.

Future Plans

John Rae and The Northern Telegraph Route has been a couple of years in the making and has been one of my favourite projects to work on. Of course we hope to take it home to the Faroes very soon with our colleagues Aldubáran and then to tour it around the North Atlantic Region to Iceland, Denmark and hopefully even Greenland. We’d also like to bring it into mainland Scotland and the wider UK. Please do contact us if you’d like a performance in your area.

This project was kindly supported by:

Logo of the National Lottery featuring a hand with crossed fingers, labeled 'LOTTERY FUNDED' alongside the Creative Scotland logo in both English and Scottish Gaelic.
Logo of the Vaughan Williams Foundation featuring stylized letters and geometric shapes in dark blue and yellow.
Logo of the Hinrichsen Foundation featuring a stylized 'Z' in pink and the foundation's name in gray.
Logo of the Francis Routh Trust featuring the initials 'frt' in a stylized font over a red circle, with the full name displayed alongside.

Ailie Robertson was supported by:

Logo of PRS Foundation featuring concentric shapes and text.

Eli Tausen á Lava and Arnannguaq Gerstrøm were supported by:

Logo of koda kultur featuring geometric shapes in yellow, red, pink, purple, and blue with bold black text.

Transport sponsor:

Logo of NorthLink Ferries featuring a Viking figure pointing forward.

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Published by katherinewrentranslator

Trained as a professional musician I have worked as a viola player with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra since 1998. I also have an MA in Translation Studies and a BA in German and English, which I achieved with first class honours. I work as a translator from German to English, specialising in music and mountain sports and tourism. As well as performing, I give pre-concert talks, translate musical and cultural texts and write articles on music. I am also engaged in translating Wagner's "Oper und Drama."

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