He may be lithe of frame, but Ilan Volkov, principal guest conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the architect of this weekend's Tectonics festival, which is filling the spaces of Glasgow's City Halls complex with new and experimental music, is like a substantial piece of industrial machinery when he is fully engaged in a project.
When I grab a few minutes with him between the first rehearsals of the five new pieces that the orchestra will be premiering over tomorrow and Sunday, he talks with energy and enthusiasm of every element of an event that is very much his baby and which he plans to send out into the world – before he reaches for the cheese sandwich that will fuel his approach to the next new work.
Among the instruments deployed among the more the traditional sights on the platform of the Grand Hall are the branch of a tree (for shaking), an ancient phonograph (for revealing the source of a quotation in one of the scores) and a specially-built guitar (for Malcolm MacFarlane to play). Some, if not all, of these will be involved in David Fennessy's Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon), part of a cycle of work for which the composer has been inspired by the diaries of Werner Herzog and the making the 1982 film Fitzcarraldo.
His piece opens the festivities, and another Glasgow-based composer, John De Simone, has a new piece in Sunday night's closing concert, which Volkov describes as being quite unlike other new music, but sharing characteristics with Irish composer Gerald Barry.
What has particularly enthused the conductor about the new works is the power and energy behind them all, and that was as true of Glasgow-born Martin Suckling's Release, which is "beautifully orchestrated, in a very characteristic way, and sounded good immediately."
Canadian Chiyoko Szlavnics mixing the orchestra with electronics, Romanian Iancu Dumitrescu working in partnership with guitarist Stephen O'Malley of the group Sun O))) and a new work by American Alvin Lucier round off the world premieres, and much of the rest of music has been heard only at the previous incarnation of Tectonics in Reykavick, where Volkov conducts the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in their new Harpa concert hall. Charles Ross, a Scots composer Volkov encountered in Iceland will guide some of the musicians through his The Ventriloquist by moving rocks and seaweed in a sandbox.
Volkov already has plans for the event to go to Israel in June and Adelaide in March of 2014, before Iceland again in April and Glasgow in May.
Best to embrace Tectonics now, because it is likely to come and find you before long.
Tectonics is at Glasgow's City Halls from 5pm tomorrow to Sunday night.
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