Details of Royal Scottish National Orchestra visit next month revealed

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) is to visit Shetland at the beginning of March.

The trip by 70 musicians, to be termed “Out and About in Shetland”, is regarded as the orchestra’s “most geographically ambitious residential endeavour” in the UK.

There will be five days of rehearsals and performances, education and community activities, and workshops and masterclasses from Thursday 1st to Monday 5th March.

In the Year of Creative Scotland, the Shetland visit forms the most northerly element of Music Nation, a UK-wide weekend of music-making and the first nationwide countdown event to the London 2012 Festival.

Since 2004 the RSNO has been committed to its Out and About programme – annual, week-long residencies in areas of the country which are not frequently visited by a national performing arts organisation.

The Shetland event is a partnership with Shetland Arts and is supported by Creative Scotland, Loganair, Total E&P UK Ltd, Capital Solutions, NorthLink Ferries and Shetland Islands Council.

The RSNO has been preparing for this trip for well over a year. Last year it commissioned Shetland-born composer and award-winning traditional fiddler Chris Stout to compose a substantial work for orchestra which will serve as the centrepiece of the Sunday evening concert.

Chris also wrote a motif which has been used as the starting point of a composition and performance project involving RSNO and Shetland musicians.

Four groups from the RSNO visited the isles last October and made contact with a number of Shetland-based traditional musicians, armed with Chris’s “musical kernel”. Since the initial visit the four groups have worked together with Chris in Shetland, in Glasgow and online, producing four distinct works inspired by his original melody.

Chris said: “I’m delighted that the RSNO will be visiting Shetland. It’s a nice feeling to know that the excitement and anticipation felt by the visiting musicians will be shared by the local community. This project allows musicians to share ideas on a huge scale and I’m certain everyone will come out of it feeling energised and fulfilled.

“It is this sense of sharing knowledge which has been the main inspiration behind my piece Tingaholm. Although it exists as a complete work it stays true to the tradition that I have been brought up with. It is open to the interpretation of some of the finest musicians in Shetland, in collaboration with members of the RSNO. I can’t wait to hear the results.”

On Friday 2nd March the four ensembles will perform their new works as well as traditional tunes and contributions from the RSNO musicians at separate locations in the outer isles, each marking geographic points of the compass. They will visit Baltasound Junior High School in Unst, Skerries Junior High School, Foula Primary School and Fair Isle Primary School and perform concerts connected via live video link to each other as well as transmitted live to the Garrison Theatre in Lerwick. The Outer Isles Project starts at 7.30pm and all associated events in the outer isles are free of charge.

The RSNO Brass Quintet will present Bigton Brass Concert, an afternoon programme featuring music by Bizet, Beethoven, Gershwin and Mancini, at Bigton Hall on the Saturday from 3pm.

Also on Saturday is Busta Recital – violinist Paul Medd will be performing a solo recital in the Long Room of the historic Busta House Hotel at 2.30pm. Tickets for both events are available from Shetland Box Office.

On the Friday RSNO leader James Clark will provide masterclasses for local young string players before they join the RSNO to perform at St Columba’s Church, Lerwick, on the Saturday night. Members of the RSNO will also be offering mentoring opportunities to members of the Shetland Community Orchestra.

St Columba’s Church on Saturday 3rd March is the venue for the Big Kirk Chamber Concert, with James Clark joined by strings, brass and woodwind from the RSNO and local young musicians side-by-side.

As part of the programme James will perform Mozart’s First Violin Concerto, with the concert starting at 7.30pm. Again tickets are available from Shetland Box Office.

The RSNO returns to its symphonic proportions for The Sunday Symphony on 4th March at Clickimin in Lerwick – for the orchestra’s 21st anniversary since its last full performance in the town.
The programme, conducted by Austrian David Danzmayr, includes Britten’s Four Sea Interludes, Sibelius’s Symphony No1 and the world première of Tingaholm.  

On Monday 5th March the full force of the visiting musicians will be heard once more, this time for the schools concert Heroes and Rogues. Paul Rissmann will guide the young concert-goers through a musical journey, exploring key musical concepts linked to the curriculum.

Two groups of RSNO musicians will present specially adapted versions of the orchestra’s award-winning concert programme for pre-school children, Monster Music, at Brae High School, Clickimin Leisure Centre, Sandwick Junior High School and the Mid Yell Community Hall.

Working with Shetland’s community mental health team, members of the orchestra have devised a tailor-made creative workshop for patients, to be held at Clickimin on the Saturday.

The musicians are also catering for those who are unable to attend the RSNO performances, with a number of informal performances planned in residential care homes across the isles.

Education and Community Partnerships director Ellen Thomson said: “Bringing together two fantastic musical traditions was the source of inspiration for the RSNO’s Out and About week in Shetland and I am delighted that we’ve been able to do this in such a creative way.

“This project brings with it the usual RSNO ingredients, full orchestral concerts, inspirational music making for young people, tailor-made community workshops and small-scale performances as well as collaboration with some of Shetland’s finest musicians.”

Shetland Arts director Gwilym Gibbons said: “This is a hugely ambitious and exciting project and one that has been a long term ambition of Shetland Arts and the RSNO.

“I am delighted that Shetland Arts and RSNO are working in partnership to bring the orchestra to Shetland. It is very rare for a full symphony orchestra to commit to overcoming the enormous logistical challenge of getting to an island location like ours, let alone head out to our own outer isles of Fair Isle, Outer Skerries, Foula and Unst.”

For more information go to www.rsno.org.uk or contact Shetland Box Office on (01595) 745555 or www.shetlandboxoffice.org