Edinburgh-born, Birmingham-based trumpeter and composer Sean Gibbs has written a series of compositions inspired by the poetry of Robert Burns which comprise the first CD by the newly formed Birmingham Jazz Orchestra. Gibbs, who was a finalist in this year’s Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year competition, graduated with first class honours from Birmingham Conservatoire in June and has previously written arrangements for vocalists Norma Winstone and Judy Niemack. The CD, which also features fellow Birmingham-based Scots, drummer Jonathan Silk and saxophonist John Fleming, who are both previous Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year winners, is released on August 11.
seangibbs.com
The flagship ensemble of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland, the NYoS Symphony Orchestra, is following in the footsteps of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and setting off on a tour of the land of the sumptuous new concert hall, the People's Republic of China. With Rory Macdonald conducting and pianist Danny Driver (pictured) playing Erik Chisholm's Piano Concerto No.1, the NYoS Symphony plays Shanghai Grand Theatre on Saturday August 1, Beijing Concert Hall on Wednesday August 5, and Tianjin Grand Theater on Thursday August 6.
Music by Shostakovich and Rachmaninov completes the programme, and the whole concert has a "Bon Voyage" Scottish performance next Wednesday, July 29, at Perth Concert Hall, at 7.30pm. The tour is in fact the second time NYoS has been to China, the senior musicians having been preceded by a Children's String Ensemble in 2004, but these will be the first concerts with a full symphony orchestra. The young musicians are looking forward to a grand send off in Perth next week.
horsecross.co.uk
Tomorrow sees the opening of a new exhibition at Hawick Museum in the Borders that displays new work by Alexander Curtis alongside the scupltures that inspired them by Hanne Schorp-Pflumm, which were collected by Sandy Curle, a Border soldier and diplomat and Curtis's grandfather. Hanne Shorpe- Pflumm died in 1990 and her works were a response to the horrors of the Second World War. A street in her hometown of Stuttgart is named after her. Curtis's practice involves annotated maps and drawing as well as sculpture.
The show, On the Brink of Speech, runs until September 20 and coincides with a retrospective of the work of Anne Redpath at the same venue.
alexandercurtis.info
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 here