Shifting Patterns: Scottish Ensemble opens 2025/26 fusing music by Anna Meredith and Henryk Górecki with animations by Ewan Jones Morris

Scottish Ensemble at Celtic Connections in January 2025 with Donald Grant and Friends (Photo: Tom Lovatt)

The Scottish Ensemble opens its 2025/2026 season with Shifting Patterns, a programme of music by Anna Meredith and Henryk Górecki which promises to be a striking fusion of sound and visuals. Touring to Eden Court in Inverness, Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh and Perth Concert Hall during October, the programme will explore the emotive power of sonic patterns being transformed through kaleidoscopic repetitions using bespoke projections by animator Ewan Jones Morris as a stunning visual backdrop to Anna Meredith’s works.

The programme features Henryk Górecki's Quasi una Fantasia. This work is the second of Górecki's three quartets, all of which were premiered by the Kronos Quartet. Quasi una Fantasia was written in 1991 and the work invokes Beethovenian parallels not just from the title but the composer acknowledged that Beethoven’s piano sonatas and string quartets had provided the impetus for his first two quartets.

The programme will also feature eight works by Anna Meredith including works for string quartet which have been newly arranged for the thirteen musicians of Scottish Ensemble, offering a chance to hear these surprising and enlightening works for expanded forces.

Taking a multidisciplinary approach to filmmaking, Ewan Jones Morris combines live action, collage, stop motion and CG to transform the ordinary and explore imagined inner worlds, you can explore his work on Vimeo (including a sample below)

Full details from the Scottish Ensemble's website.

Refuge: An Evening of Opera Exploring Women’s Experiences and Resilience

On 23 September 2025, soprano Lizzie Ryder is curating and performing in Refuge: An Evening of Opera Exploring Women’s Experiences and Resilience at the Brunel Museum's Thames Tunnel Shaft. 

The evening will feature sopranos Lizzie Ryder, Roberta Philip and Georgie Malcolm, mezzos Hannah Morley and Naomi Lidiard, tenor Matthew Curtis, actor Rachel Fletcher and pianist Panaretos Kyriatzidis in a concert in aid of Refuge, the UK charity supporting women and children experiencing domestic abuse.

The evening will features music from Puccini's Suor Angelica, Britten's Peter Grimes, Donizetti's Anna Bolena, Verdi's Otello, Mascagni's Cavallerie Rusticana, Bizet's Carmen, Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking and Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves.

Set in this extraordinary underground space, the programme brings together scenes and arias that centre women’s voices-care, crisis and defiance, alongside brief spoken interludes. All profits will be donated to Refuge.

Further information and tickets from EventBrite.