Reviews
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INTERSECTIONS (KRAHE)
Strange as it may seem, multimedia music about mysterious and paranormal phenomena is a mini-trend in Glasgow at the moment. The Glasgow New Music Expedition’s latest concert, ‘Intersections,’ which paired together local composers and artists (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Glasgow School of Art graduates, respectively), was bookended by such pieces: Nostos by Matt Zurowski and James Dixon, about the tragic sinking of the fishing boat Antares in the Firth of Clyde in 1990; and A Prophecy from a Dying Star by Jay Capperauld and Julian Tolhurst, inspired by the conspiracy theories around supposed audio recordings of several doomed Soviet missions into space years before Yuri Gagarin.
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Astrid String Quartet and Davur Juul Magnussen at Greyfriars Kirk (The Strad)
Staying on the Fringe, local band the Astrid Quartet, based in Glasgow, undertook an ambitious quintet series in Greyfriars Kirk, with cello, clarinet, double bass and piano (respectively) joining them in Schubert, Brahms, Dvorák and Elgar. Most intriguing, though, was the 14 August concert, when the quartet was joined by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s charismatic principal trombonist Dávur Juul Magnussen in two new pieces by Glasgow-based composers, for the unlikely but – as it turned out – entirely convincing combination of trombone and string quartet.
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Astrid String Quartet and Davur Juul Magnussen at Greyfriars Kirk (The Times)
The Fringe is dotted with newly fledged music students keen to find an audience. The Astrid Quartet are one such ensemble, formed in 2011 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This, the third in a series of five quintet concerts, eschewed established repertoire (they have already ticked off Schubert’s cello and Brahms’s clarinet quintet) in favour of new commissions from Glaswegian composers Richard Greer and Claire McCue for string quartet and trombone.
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Five Excerpts From Summer
In the earliest years of the RCS's annual Plug festival of new compositions there was a sense of hope that good new music would emerge.
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Ridge A - RSAMD Symphony Orchestra - City Halls
I emerged from the City Hall on Friday night speechless, moist-eyed and in a state of wonder over all that I had heard. What follows is a snapshot. Deeper consideration of some of the issues that arose in the course of the RSAMD Symphony Orchestra's long concert will wait until another time and context.
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