25 July, 2008

Twitterings....




The creative process came to fruition this week for five young Scottish composers when they met the four professional musicians who will perform their pieces and their mentor for the project, renowned Scottish composer Alasdair Nicolson. After four hard but fruitful days of composing, playing, rewriting and rehearsing the young hopefuls completed their compositions and on the fifth day they were recorded. The five short pieces will be played live in the Temperate Palmhouse of Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens twice during the festival (Fri 15 & Thurs 21 Aug).

The initiative, entitled Twittering Machine, is inspired by a work of the same name by the late German visual artist Paul Klee and is also in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Oliver Messiaen. The artwork, which the composers discussed and used as inspiration during the composition process, centres on an arrangement of small birds which appear to be innocently chirping on their perch but on further inspection reveals mutated and strained mechanical creatures fixed above an ominous looking pit. The event is being run as part of the Bank of Scotland Connecting to Culture program.

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