- Aron Dahl (Norway) & Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (Norway): a copy of a copy
Composer and film-maker Aron Dahl collaborated with experimental trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø to create a copy of a copy. The work uses the concept of the traditional children’s game where a phrase is passed around a circle until it mutates into something unrecognisable.
With Henrik’s unique playing as a starting point, both the video and audio take their own paths, with some surprising twists along the way.
Supported by Arts and Culture Norway
- Easterhouse Children’s Manifesto Co-created by Oakwood Primary School, Red Note Ensemble and Dumbworld.
Inspired by the 1931 publication 'La Anarquia Explicada a Los Niños', an instructional manual for children published during the Spanish Civil War that explained the ideas and practises of anarchy -composer Brian Irvine and director John McIlduff in collaboration with the children of Oakwood Primary School in Glasgow and Red Note Ensemble have created a collection of 7 musical animated video posters that explore key elements of “anarchical” thinking such as autonomy, kindness and human connectivity from a child’s perspective.
The work was developed over a year long process of co-creation involving pupils, teachers, artists and musicians.
Born from Red Note’s 5 Places programme, which targets five locations across central Scotland. This programme aims to properly get to know people in their own neighbourhood at grassroots level, and work with them to make and create new live music together in the heart of their community over a number of years. This Easterhouse collaboration is based on the ideas and voices of Oakwood Primary School’s pupils and their partnered groups from the wider community. The project was led by composer Brian Irvine, who wanted to allow young people’s anarchy to direct us, the grown-ups, on ways in which we can uncover the best of what we as humans can be.
- Ursula Leveaux & David McGuinness (Scotland): Rainy Sundays
Rainy Sundays brings together Ursula Leveaux (Nash Ensemble, Academy of Ancient Music) and David McGuinness (Concerto Caledonia) in improvisations that draw on their shared experience of 18th-century music, spinning old and new tunes into spacious, consonant texture.
- James Dillon (Scotland): Tanz/haus
- Tine Surel Lange (Norway): Flaskepost
Red Note Ensemble: Jackie Shave (violin), Lionel Handy (cello), Iain Crawford (doublebass), Ruth Morley (flute), Will White (clarinet), Sjors van der Mark (electric guitar), Djordje Gajic (accordion), Tom Hunter (percussion), Simon Smith (piano / electronic keyboard), Matthew Swan (electronics), Simon Proust (conductor)
Internationally-renowned Scottish contemporary music specialists Red Note Ensemble bring a programme that celebrates the ensemble’s links with the Nordic countries alongside one of its most significant recent Scottish commissions - the award-winning Tanz/haus by James Dillon. Tine Surel Lange’s Flaskepost was premiered at soundfestival in Aberdeen as part of Northern Connection, and Tanz/haus opened Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s 40th edition to great acclaim.
Tanz/haus has been recorded by Red Note and is available on Delphian Records.
- Hans Wilkes (Scotland): Sonderscape / Mononoke / Anno 1986 / Urname
Drummer and composer Hans Wilkes performs a set of his own works for hybrid electroacoustic percussion. Blending samples, field recordings, and drum sections inspired by house, drum and bass, jungle, art house film soundtracks, all alongside a hint of nostalgia, this is a set that will round off the Fesitval Club programme in style.
- Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir (Iceland): Agape
A text/graphic score calls for the performers to predetermine a sonic path unique to their own individual interpretation; they are instructed to navigate a sequence of changes in harmony with circular movements. Performers can come to mutual agreements on aspects of their individual performances regarding intensity/tonality/etc., but this is not necessary or necessarily wanted. Seeking to excavate an individual performer’s fingerprint, what becomes interesting here is how they choose to deliberate and deliver their navigation. Their performances are then collapsed together so a listener/observer can experience the contrast of these interpretations of the “same” moment - through conflating time, the activation of the vertical exposes the manifoldness of the horizontal.
The work is presented in a single screen cinema format for the first time.
Agape was nominated for “work of the year” in the classical/contemporary category at the Icelandic Music Awards 2022
- Singing the Wooden House: Kirsten Adkins (Scotland) & Karoliina Kantelinen (Finland)
In April 2023 film-maker Kirsten Adkins travelled with a camera to a wooden house near the border town in Eastern Finland. The area was fought over during wars between 1939 and 1944. Some 400,000 people were evacuated as the border between Finland and the Soviet Union shifted. A 30 minute film installation blends film, family interviews, archive photographs, poetry and traditional song.
The film project comprises original poetry by Max Mulgrew, and composed song by Finnish singer and composer Karoliina Kantelinen.