From the churches of the East Neuk of Fife to the home of Concorde at the National Museum at East Fortune, and from the St Magnus Festival in Orkney and the Queen's Hall during the Edinburgh International Festival to the Minimal seasons of music in Glasgow's concert halls, chamber music – in the broadest sense of the phrase – is in robust good health in Scotland, with new promotional initiatives joining established concert seasons.
Newer events like the East Neuk Festival and the Lammermuir Festival build on an infrastructure of music clubs and societies – some with histories dating back to the middle of the last century – that have annual programmes of top quality performances in community halls, churches and other venues in every corner of the country. That network, which is supported by Creative Scotland through national body Enterprise Music Scotland, is arguably unique to this nation, certainly when the scale of the activity is set alongside the size of the country and its challenging geography. As the EMS slogan boasts: "There is always a concert near you."
Next month EMS is bringing all these various strands of activity together for a special two-day conference, Chamber Music Matters, at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, on May 25 and 26. The dates coincide with the next phase of Svend Brown's Minimal concerts, showcasing the music of Philip Glass and featuring the Kronos Quartet. Kronos leader David Harrington is one of those contributing to the conference, which embraces the quartet's performance on the Friday evening.
To that EMS has added a concert by a trio from Germany's Ensemble Modern, European music pioneers for over 30 years. In an important link with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which is showcasing its composing talent in the Plug concerts this week, the group will workshop half a dozen new works by student composers and then select one or two for world premiere performances in their own recital.
Scotland's own international-class chamber groups the Scottish Ensemble, the Hebrides Ensemble and the Red Note Ensemble will also feature over the two days with their directors and administrators joining academics from Scottish universities to discuss the way forward for chamber music. Composers James MacMillan, John Harris, Gareth Williams and David Fennessy are also part of the programme and the opening address on Friday will be given by writer and broadcaster Tom Service.
Delegates to the conference have a packed agenda, ending on Saturday afternoon with a recital by the Sutherland Duo, current recipients of one of the EMS residencies, and places are still available. The conference has also generated a showcase event for young ensembles, taking place parallel with the Kronos concert, at Glasgow's Merchant House, and for which tickets will be available to the public separately.
The event also marks the merger of Chamber Music Forum Scotland into the longer-established Enterprise Music Scotland with composer Oliver Searle joining the EMS board. It is a consolidation of resources that Creative Scotland has rewarded with extra investment of almost £30,000 from funds dedicated to growing the country's "cultural economy".
Helen McVey, executive manager of EMS, sees Chamber Music Matters as "a sign of developments to come".
She added: "We make professional live music happen and we want to celebrate our musicians, our audiences and ask the big questions on the future of the classical music industry."
www.chambermusicmatters.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article