The Scottish Chamber Orchestra last visited Shetland 17 years ago, but some of the locals who attended the orchestra's concerts at the weekend remember that earlier visit fondly, although it is half a lifetime ago for conductor Garry Walker.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra last visited Shetland 17 years ago, but some of the locals who attended the orchestra's concerts at the weekend remember that earlier visit fondly, although it is half a lifetime ago for conductor Garry Walker.

The centrepiece of this visit, which also included education projects in some of the local primary schools and a weekend of workshops for older amateur wind players, was a concert given by the full orchestra on Saturday. It was flanked by performances given by the SCO's string and wind sections.

The structure makes good economic sense, but it was also of practical interest, showcasing the separate sections of the orchestra and encompassing a wider range of repertoire than would be possible in two full-orchestral performances.

The main hall of the Clickimin Leisure Complex is the only venue in Lerwick large enough to accommodate an orchestra - even a chamber one - and its audience. A games hall of polished floors and high ceilings, it promised to be an overly resonant venue, but it actually has a decidedly dry acoustic.

The SCO strings, who gave the first of the weekend's performances on Friday, were at the greatest disadvantage in these surroundings, although the sound was much better than the players imagined. Close up there was little depth or blending of sound, but from further back everything came together with surprising clarity. Still, it did account for the somewhat tentative edge to the playing, particularly early on in the performance.

There was a strong classical slant to the programme, directed from the violin by leader Christopher George, not only in two of Mozart's string Divertimenti but also in Grieg's Holberg Suite and Britten's Frank Bridge Variations, both homages to an earlier age. While the Grieg is a lyrical gem, Britten's work is a virtuoso tour de force for any string ensemble, played here with plenty of brilliance by the SCO strings.

The SCO winds seemed less affected by the acoustic. Perhaps the sound of the instruments carries better or the players had had the full orchestra performance the previous night to acclimatise. Their concert attracted the smallest audience, but with the hall lit only by the lights surrounding the players and the audience confined to the front of the venue, it also had the nicest atmosphere. These wind-only concerts always turn up some novel repertoire and here was no exception, with Jean Francaix's delicately scored dances from Les Malheurs de Sophie - a ballet about the misadventures of a decidedly nasty sounding little girl - which was performed alongside Raff's grand Sinfonietta and Hummel's Octet-Partita, here actually a nonet thanks to the addition of a contrabassoon.

When the two halves of the orchestra came together on Saturday, they did so under the baton of Garry Walker in a programme that began with a Shetland theme - Sally Beamish's the Day Dawn, which is based on an island fiddle tune - and finished with the energy and joy of Beethoven's First Symphony. In between were Britten's folksong arrangements, sung by Joshua Ellicott, a pleasingly light, but for once not anaemic-sounding English tenor, and Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture.

The Beethoven went down particularly well with the 500-strong audience, though the encore went over even better. With its high-octane violin-led melodies, Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances struck a chord with the fiddling tradition on the islands and raised the suggestion that when the SCO next makes it to Shetland, a joint project with some of its fiddle players could be interesting. Hopefully that will be sooner than 2024.