Welcome to our 20th festival!
225 commissions later, sound is now an organisation that not only gives audiences from North East Scotland the opportunity to discover a wide range of new music on their doorstep, but also offers year-round support programmes for composers and young people.
There have been ups and downs over the years: promoting and encouraging ‘niche’ music isn’t always easy, and the arts funding environment continues to be challenging. And of course there was the pandemic...
But we love sharing our passion for new music, and are proud of all the partnerships, projects and new works we have created along the way. We are particularly excited to present this 20th festival to you: bringing back some regular performers and composers, as well as introducing some new faces. We hope you’ll come and celebrate with us!
Fiona Robertson, Director and Pete Stollery, Chair
Returning for the 2024 festival is Graham Fitkin, who was among the performers at Upbeat!, a four-day “taster” event held in November 2004. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the festival, Graham Fitkin has been commissioned by sound to write a work for the combined forces of Aberdeen’s new music ensemble, Any Enemy, the young musicians of Get Creative, and the Con Anima chamber choir. Two days later Fitkin and harpist Ruth Wall will perform Harpland, exploring issues of migration, loss and longing.
Also returning in 2024 is sound Patron, Dame Evelyn Glennie CH, who performed the first ever sound commission (by Sally Beamish) at the first soundfestival in 2005. The acclaimed percussionist will be joined by the members of the New London Chamber Ensemble in a programme of works for percussion and wind quintet.
“It has been a great pleasure to be a Patron of sound and I am delighted to be performing in the 20th anniversary festival. Throughout my career I have been privileged to have had works commissioned for me and to have performed premieres of new pieces, so I understand how important organisations like sound are in supporting both composers and performers, and making sure there is a vital platform for new work.” - Dame Evelyn Glennie CH.
Joby Burgess, a percussionist who is equally celebrated for his virtuosic performances as his extensive education work has appeared in five festivals both as a solo performer as well as with the Colin Currie group and the Fitkin band. In 2024 he will give a family concert and a solo recital featuring works by Graham Fitkin, Dobrinka Tabakova, John Metcalfe and Gabriel Prokoviev amongst others.
sound’s 2023 festival opened with the Scottish performance of the Northern Connection project. An international collaboration, Northern Connection is a partnership between Scotland (sound, Red Note Ensemble and Scottish Music Centre); Finland (Music Finland, Musica nova Festival and defunensemble) and Norway (Music Norway, Ultima Festival and Ensemble Temporum) in which each nation is represented by a composer, an ensemble, a national music organisation and a festival.
The 2024 festival brings together the three ensembles in a joint concert featuring specially-commissioned works by Tine Surel Lange (Norway), Lisa Robertson (Scotland) and Lauri Supponen (Finland). Additionally, defunensemble will give a concert of works by Finnish Composers and Ensemble Temporum will perform four compositions by composers from cities along their train route to get from Oslo to Aberdeen! Red Note, meanwhile, will join forces with Laura Bowler in a new work for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and in another concert give a platform to five emerging composers who have written pieces for marimba and viola.
