Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Byre Theatre, 22nd-24th June

Bored of the Referendum campaigns? Then come down to the Byre Theatre, St Andrews, on the 22nd, 23rd or 24th June and see Byre Opera’s performance of Britten’s ghostly masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. It is based on the novel by Henry James about a governess who goes to look after 2 children in a remote house, and the unearthly happenings that start to unfold after she arrives.

I am playing viola in the chamber orchestra, and this is the third Britten opera I have played in. I have come to like Britten’s style of writing- good tunes interspersed with idiomatic vocal writing, plus the advantage of the text being in English and therefore  easily understandable for the audience. Britten’s operas are often very inclusive, containing parts for children, and this opera is no exception – Miles is played by 2 young boys (there are 2 casts for different performances).

The facebook event is here and you will find Byre Opera on instagram as @byre_opera. Look forward to seeing you there – tickets are selling fast!

We are also touring the performance to Stirling MacRobert on 28th June and The Maltings, Berwick on 8th July if you can’t make the St Andrews performances.

 

Advertisement

Concert tomorrow!

Well, the day before the concert has arrived. Here is the final (or not so final…) line up:

Jess – selection of unaccompanied Bach from Cello Suites (gigues and menuets)

Trio – Schubert movement (Violin/viola/cello)

Clarinet and piano duo – lighter music… TBC

Trad Scottish tunes (viola) TBC

Watch this space for repertoire developments!! Or simply turn up at 1pm tomorrow and come to the concert! Your choice 🙂

All pieces performed by current or past members of the Heisenberg Ensemble, in aid of the 25th Anniversary Fund. Admission free but retiring collection with be taken, Refreshments available from 12.15pm.

ALL WELCOME!!!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Hope to see you there!! 🙂

 

Jess xxx

Taking the plunge…

Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that for a long time now I have had a project in the back of my mind: a social project connected with the power of the arts to transform lives for the better. Having spent time in a hospital recently, a lot of things have become clearer to me: the power of human kindness, patience, compassion and above all, a little space to live your own life in.

I have been wondering, waiting and worrying, as I am wont to do, about the timing of such a project, the feasibility issues, the cost, the practical logistics, when I thought: ‘it might be now, or never’. So I took a chance, A risk, some might say. I took the plunge. I’m still not sure that it was the “right” thing to do, but perhaps I never will be, and anyway, I’m not sure that that is the important thing here.

The important thing is:

I did something. Not Nothing. And that means something.

I did it. Here goes. I said it.

 St Andrews Smiles Better Facebook Page – An experiment in positive thinking

“Don’t Ration Compassion” (a monk at Samye Ling Monastery, fieldwork, 2009)

This project is extremely close to my heart. So many people have touched my life in different ways, that I find it very hard not to say Thanks every time someone does something nice for me. So I want to pass it on. Play it forward. Form my own “Karma Army” like Danny Wallace. Help local businesses succeed and create employment opportunities. Play music to people to cheer them up. Do random acts of kindness and smile at people I don’t know. 

 

Thank you all for reading.

 

Love,

Jess xxxxxxxxxxx

With a little help from my friends… An open invitation!

An Open Invitation: ‘With a little help from my friends’

Thursday 29th August

St Andrews Church, Queen’s Terrace, St Andrews

1.30pm

PROGRAMME:

Cello suites/Scottish Music/Surprise!!

Who, me?

You will need:

FRIENDS…….
FAMILY……..
CAKE……
MONEY…..

Tea/wine/champagne…….

Your ears!

The plan:

The charities:

Heisenberg (Jill Craig)

Families First (St Andrews)

Sistema Scotland/In Harmony

Arts in Fife/Dundee

Drake Music Scotland

Music in Hospitals

Military Wives Choir (Gareth Malone)

Scottish Ensemble {insert group here}

Rokpa/Tibetan Children’s Villages/ICT

Brooklands College

Signpost International (Dundee)

Just Made/Gillian Gamble

 

Pragya (India)

RSPCA/RSPB/Big cat rescue

SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!! Answers on a post card to: Jess Long!

Lunchtime Concert with Paul Livingston, Dundee University Chaplaincy, 28th Sept 1.20pm

At 1.20pm on Friday 28th September at Dundee University Chaplaincy, I will be performing a duo recital with a superb violinist and friend of mine, Paul Livingston. Paul freelances with Scottish Opera and is part of a duo with guitarist Ian Watt; you can see his full biography here.

We’ll be playing Mozart’s beautiful Duo in G major (K.423) and the amazing (and slightly infamous) Handel/Halvorsen Passacaglia in G minor, and a few pieces tbc. There’s a great performance of the Passacaglia by Perlman and Zuckerman here, and you can hear David and Igor Oistrakh play the Mozart here.

In other news, I will be returning to the St Andrews and Fife Community Orchestra tomorrow to continue helping out with the string section, and I am planning 2 lunchtime concerts in February and March 2013 with Audrey Innes, playing the Hindemith viola sonata op 11 No 4. I’m also entering 2 pupils for ABRSM grade exams this term; in June, my pupil who took grade 1 achieved a merit, so I was very pleased with that. Finally, we will soon be getting a kitten – I can’t wait!

Scotland’s Arts Festivals

I’ve been trying to keep track of what is going on when in the Scottish arts scene, and in the process I created a month-by-month list of all the festivals I know of that are taking place around Scotland. This list is not exhaustive, and I’ve only included ones that most people would be interested in/would have heard of. Hope this helps when planning what to see and when!

The festivals in blue are the ones I have taken part in or been involved with in some way.

——————

January

Celtic Connections (19^th Jan- 5^th Feb, Glasgow)

Fife Festival of Music (30^th Jan-12^th Feb)

February

Fife Jazz Festival (3-5th Feb)

Lentfest (21st Feb-15th April, run by Archdiocese of Glasgow Arts Project)

March

StAnza (14-18^th March, St Andrews)

Niel Gow Scottish Fiddle Festival (Perthshire, 16-18^th March)

Edinburgh International Harp Festival (30^th March-4^th April)

April

Eye o’ the Dug (14^th-15^th April, St Andrews)

On the Rocks (16-22^nd April, St Andrews)

Beltane Fire Festival (Calton Hill, Edinburgh, 30^th April)

May

Shetland Folk Festival (3-6^th May)

Fifesing (11-13th May, Fife Animal Park)

Perth Festival of the Arts (17-27^th May)

June

Horsecross Youth Arts Festival (6-30^th June)

Culross Music and Arts Festival (1-3^rd June)

St Magnus International Festival (22-27 June)

The Cottier Chamber music project (1-22nd June, part of Glasgow’s West End Festival)

East Neuk Festival (27^th June-1^st July)

July

Mendelssohn on Mull (2-7 July)

Crail Festival (18-28^th July)

Music at Paxton (13-22^nd July, Borders)

World Saxophone Congress (10-15^th July, St Andrews)

August

Pittenweem Arts Festival (28^th July-5 Aug)

Edinburgh International Festival (9^th Aug-2^nd Sept)

Edinburgh Fringe Festival (3-27^th Aug)

Aberdeen International Youth Festival (1-11^th Aug)

Auchtermuchty Festival (10-12 Aug)

September

Lammermuir Festival (14^th-23^rd Sept)

St Monan’s Community Arts Festival (14-16^th Sept)

October

Blazin’ in Beauly (15-19th Oct)

St Andrews Voices (18-21^st Oct) NEW

Sound (Aberdeen, 26^th Oct- 18^th Nov)

November

St Andrews Festival (30^th Nov-2^nd Dec)

Fiddle 2012 (16^th-18^th Nov, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh)

December

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay (30^th Dec- 2^nd Jan)

My end of course recital – more details

You are warmly invited to my end-of-course recital at 5.10pm on 20th May 2011, which counts towards the final grade for my Postgraduate Diploma in Viola Performance.

The programme will be:

Sonata in E flat Op 120 No. 2 (Johannes Brahms)

I. Allegro Amabile
II. Appassionato, ma non troppo Allegro
III. Andante con moto

Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (William Walton)

I. Andante Comodo

Concertstück for Viola and Piano (Georges Enesco)

With Hester Dickson, piano

Programme notes to follow (when I’ve actually written them…)

See the facebook event here

Preparing Scottish tunes for my cousin William’s wedding

My cousin William recently asked me to play at his wedding in the Lake District this Saturday (9th april). I’ve been spending quite a lot of time preparing what to play, and I thought I’d take you through the process I’ve been through so that I can make it a bit easier the next time I have to do something like this!

Step 1: Decide on which broad category of music to play (eg classical/folk/popular)

I chose Scottish tunes as William met his fiance at Edinburgh university, and they are having a ceilidh at the reception, plus scottish fiddle tunes work well on the viola

Step 2: Choose specifics of music (eg which piece/tunes)

This took me a wee while, I must say…

Eventually I settled on traditional scottish airs, reels and strathspeys from a book I own called ‘Scottish Folk Tunes’ edited by Kevin McCrae and Neil Johnstone. However, all the tunes are written in Bass clef- an added complication when figuring out keys and how they fit together with other tunes on the viola, which uses alto clef! Good thing I play the cello too sometimes so can just about transpose/forget about the fact that I’m reading bass clef on the viola, which messes with my head slightly!

Step 3: Edit tunes to my own requirements: fingerings, bowings, slurs, dots and ornaments.

Like all traditional music, fiddle tunes are subject to constant interpretation by players and so one printed version may not be exactly the same as another printed version. This is mainly due to folk music being passed down from family to family via oral tradition – fiddlers and pipers simply learnt pieces by ear from their parents or contemporaries, and usually no one bothered to write them down, or in some cases couldn’t write them down as they were unable to read music or write notes on a stave.

In my case, the book I mentioned above is pretty good and is very well laid out and interpreted, so there wasn’t too much re-editing to do, just some ‘hooked’ bowings to work out and fingerings to write in.

Step 4: Figure out an order to play the tunes in which makes sense to me and the listener

I’ve changed my mind several times over this! It all depends on the speed of the tune (eg a slow air is obviously pretty relaxed in tempo, and a reel or strathspey is faster) and the keys and whether the modulation sounds ‘right’ to the listener’s ear. I’m not that practiced at this yet so I hope my ‘set’ is going to make musical sense on saturday 🙂

Here is the ‘finished version’ of my set:

1. Farewell to Whisky by Niel Gow (for those of you who know William, this is particularly appropriate 😀 )

2. Laird of Drumblair by J Scott Skinner

3. De’il Amang the Tailors – not sure, I think this is traditional

4. Auld Lang Syne – traditional tune used at Hogmanay

Encore if necessary – Spey in Spate by Scott Skinner

Decemberists gig, Barrowland Ballroom, March 5th 2011

Last night, I went with Alex to the Barrowland Ballroom in the Barras area of Glasgow to hear one of my favourite bands, The Decemberists. See their amazing website for more details!

This is the second time I’ve seen them live and as always, Colin Meloy, the lead singer, was awesome at working the crowd and provided a very entertaining commentary between songs. Here are some pics from the evening:

For my fellow Decemberists fans, the setlist went something like this: (although I can’t remember exactly, and I didn’t know some of the songs as they were from their new album, The King is Dead)

California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade
?July, July!
The Gymnast, High Above the Ground
Los Angeles, I’m Yours
Some tracks from their new album, The King is Dead (I think one was Rox in the Box)
The Crane Wife Pt 3
Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
The Rake’s Song
16 Military Wives (including audience participation!)
Son’s and Daughters

Encores:
Eli, The Barrow Boy
The Mariner’s Revenge Song

Right, I’ve got the concerto prelim tomorrow morning at 10.40am so better get some sleep…

EDIT: the band just posted their actual setlist on their facebook page. I’m pleased to report that my memory was pleasingly accurate, give or take a few songs! 🙂

*********************************************************

SETLIST – 3/5 – Barrowlands – Glasgow, UK

California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade
Calamity Song
Rox in the Box
…Rise to Me
July, July!
The Rake’s Song
Los Angeles, I’m Yours
Won’t Want for Love (Margaret In The Taiga)
The Crane Wife 3
January Hymn
Don’t Carry It All
Down by the Water
16 Military Wives
Sons and Daughters
—
Eli, The Barrow Boy
The Mariner’s Revenge Song
—
June Hymn