Tectonics
Tectonics, the BBC SSO's festival of new and experimental music, returns to City Halls and Old Fruitmarket on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th May!
About Tectonics
So here we are! Tectonics Glasgow boldly marches into its second decade of experimentation and collaboration, and that’s largely down to our audiences’ commitment to showing up with a thirst for discovery and surprises. In 2023, audiences were as strong and curious as ever. This year we remain committed to celebrating the widest array of artists who are questioning what music can be. And once again we invite artists from across the globe to join UK-based artists in Glasgow.
A common thread among several of this year’s genre-defying artists is their daring use of voice, electronics and improvisation: The Wire warns that any attempts at categorising vocalist and movement artist Elaine Mitchener are doomed to fail (the same could be said for much of our 2024 line-up); Leader of a Japanese experimental rock band Koichi Makigami performs with the legendary drummer Roger Turner; New York based vocalist Ka Baird combines their live performances within minimalistic, visceral compositions; Belfast-born Brian Irvine conjures spontaneous joy from THE IMAGINARY ORCHESTRA and its concoction of notes, words, sounds, laughter and noise; and air becomes sound with another Japanese improviser, recorder player Eiko Yamada.
Day 1 in the Old Fruitmarket gets underway with musical influences that are closer to home as the award-winning duo Sarah-Jane Summers (fiddle) and Juhani Silvola (guitar) combine Scottish trad with Scandinavian influences alongside the BBC SSO strings. And Edinburgh-based artists Euan Currie and Marlo De Lara present a live improvisation drawing on voices, electronics and field recordings.
The Grand Hall hosts a number of World and UK Premieres by the BBC SSO, including a BBC Commission for orchestra and tape by Swiss-Nigerian composer Charles Uzor and a UK premiere by German composer Carola Bauckholt. Composer Marc Yeats makes a welcome return to Tectonics Glasgow for the World Premiere of his work 'a point in the landscape'. Each orchestral player is a soloist in this timecode-supported polytemporal work, which fluctuates between states of perceptual obfuscation and clarity.
And award-winning composer and turntablist Mariam Rezaei performs the UK premiere of 6 scenes for turntables and orchestra, composed with Matthew Shlomowitz. Following a turn on the podium in November 2023 for David Fennessy’s Conquest of the Useless, Jack Sheen returns to Glasgow for a new BBC commission (titled Lag) with its temporal uncertainty reflecting glitches in our use of digital technology.
On both evenings our friend and admired colleague, violinist Ilya Gringolts, performs two UK premieres – a virtuosic work for solo violin by Salvatore Sciarrino and a work for violin and orchestra by Mirela Ivičević, commissioned by the I&I Foundation. There’s also two more UK premieres as Yaron Deutsch performs major contemporary works for solo electric guitar by Pierluigi Billone and Andreas Dohmen, both of which were written especially for him. Throughout the weekend in the Recital Room, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Kate Armitage is joined by four ‘favourite outcasts’ for a series of improvisations across the weekend.
Thank you for staying curious and for supporting Tectonics Glasgow and the BBC SSO in staging its latest musical adventure.
Have fun,
Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, curators
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