Friday 24 September 2021

Red Note Ensemble's Autumn season represents a step in their plans to create a permanent, stable company of musicians rooted within Scotland

Red Note Ensemble (Photo Julie Howden)
Red Note Ensemble (Photo Julie Howden)

The Scottish Contemporary Music group, Red Note Ensemble, performs at Perth Concert Hall tonight (24 September 2021) when Geoffrey Patterson conducts them in a new work by Scottish composer James DillonEMBLEMATA: Carnival, and the performance (which includes discussion about this impressive commission) follows three days of recording two works by Dillon for Delphian Records.

The ensemble has already been performing other music by Dillon this month as they launched their Autumn season with a concert at the Lammermuir Festival on 15 September 2021 in which Jonathan Berman conducted Tansy Davies' Soul Canoe and Dillon's Tanz/Haus: triptych 2017, Red Note's own commission which won the the Royal Philharmonic Society composition award.

Red Note returns to Perth in November with Sub Mari by Martina Corsini and Manuel Figueroa-Bolvarán, a special multimedia commission for COP26 with further performances in Edinburgh and Glasgow and plans for a broadcast.

These performances at Perth are part of Red Note's new residency at Perth Concert Hall, and represent a step in the ensemble's plans to create a permanent, stable company of musicians rooted within Scotland. And they are aiming for a smaller travel-based carbon footprint, longer-term, sustainable community links, international performance excellence within Scotland, and fostering musical equality and diversity with more training and education opportunities within Scottish communities. As well as practical goals, these also serve as themes to inspire both the programming and selection of artists.  

John Harris, Red Note's CEO and artistic director, explained that they are "changing the way we work to proactively address the simultaneous challenges of Brexit, the pandemic and the climate emergency through our work. Facing these issues has led us to transform our working model. For this season, we’ll employ a core group of musicians, moving Red Note away from a project-by-project model towards a sustainable repertoire company. We’ll no longer fly our musicians in and out of Scotland on an almost daily basis. Our core players will have more stability and certainty, working with exciting guest talent to deliver a wide-ranging programme of the highest quality."

Other performances this Autumn include commissions from Ailie Robertson, Luke Styles and Edwin Hillier at sound Festival, Aberdeen, conducted by William Cole (22/10/21), James Dillon, Luke Styles and Aileen Sweeney at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, conducted by Geoffrey Patterson, (19/11/21) and Brian Irvine in Easterhouse, Glasgow (23-26/11/21).

Full details from the Red Note Ensemble's website


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