We caught the 13:00 train to Perth from Inverness on Saturday. The journey down was so beautiful as we passed the Cairngorms. The journey went smoothly and we arrived into Perth at around 15:30 and headed to St. John’s Kirk.
The church is so beautiful and it was a joy to play there – even though it was absolutely freezing inside!
It was another great turn out for the audience and Daniel’s family really enjoyed the recital! We had a lot of fun!
We then made our way to Edinburgh, where we will finish the tour on Sunday.
Thank you to everyone who came out to watch us – we are very grateful!
We had such an amazing concert day in Nairn! We arrived into Inverness at around 12:30 and our lovely host, Joan, gave us a lift to their beautiful home in Nairn. Joan and her husband made us feel extremely welcome and made us a very delicious soup and spread for lunch. We then relaxed and had a walk in their stunning garden. After quite a bumpy 3.5hr bus journey, it was very much needed!
We then made our way to venue in Nairn at Community & Arts Centre to rehearse before the concert. It was such a lovely hall with a great acoustic! There was a great turn out at the concert and the audience were so receptive and listened very attentively.
Half way through the first piece of the recital (Kiss on Wood), as Daniel was playing on the G string, both his A and D strings completely unravelled… So we had to stop the recital and spend the next minute re-tuning the violin! Thankfully the audience were very understanding and we started the piece again.
We had such a great time in Nairn and it was made extra special by staying with Joan and her husband. They told us many great stories and were so hospitable with everything. They also have the cutest black Labrador called Brodie. We were very sad to leave, but were excited to get on the road to play in Perth tonight. Daniel’s family were coming to watch, so we were really looking forward to this concert!
Thank you again to everyone who came to watch us in Nairn, we really appreciate it a lot!
Our hosts beautiful garden.
The view from our warm up room at the venue.
The hall we played in.
Alas, our tour has to come to an end! We are truly grateful to all of the wonderful people we met on the way, and to have experienced some lovely corners of Scotland we had never encountered before. On top of that we had the rare chance to perform three nights in a row, which is quite a special thing in itself, and the group has really taken a lot from it.
The morning after our concert in the Old Well Theatre of Moffat – we went straight back to Cafe Ariete for brunch! One long card game and many pots of tea later and we were back on the road, this time to West Kilbride. It made for a perfect wrapping up of our tour, with friends and family managing to make it from Glasgow.
It is fair to say that we are now absolutely shattered and very much sad that it’s all over. We’d like to give a huge thank you again to The Tunnell Trust for the support and work that has gone into making this incredible opportunity a possibility for us. Thank you!
Yesterday, we enjoyed our second concert of the tour performing for the Moffat Music Society. We had spent the morning travelling up from Dundee after an evening spent in our kind host’s indoor swimming pool! The drive was very enjoyable as we journeyed through the beautiful Scottish countryside singing along to a couple of Broadway musicals. Upon arriving in Moffat, we enjoyed a late lunch at Cafe Ariete along with a game of cards before heading over to meet Katharine who managed to summon five music stands from far corners of Moffat to accommodate our short, productive rehearsal.
The Old Well Theatre was a delightful venue for our concert with its tiered seating and friendly floor lamps that glowed in the corner of the stage. The audience made us immediately feel at ease with chuckles at our introductions and hearty applause that eventually drew an encore of the first of Malcolm Arnold’s “Three Shanties” from us.
We are now packed and prepared for our final concert in this short tour in West Kilbride this evening where we look forward to many of our friends and family joining us in the audience.
Hello! We are the Stroud-Zhang Duo and we are very excited to be touring around the north of Scotland for the next few days!
Our first concert is in beautiful the Isle of Skye tonight. Yesterday we were travelling from London, so it a 12-hour trip up to Skye. We made our way to Gatwick, to catch the 13:30 flight up to Inverness. Our descent into Inverness was absolutely beautiful, with very dramatic and scenic landscapes.
We then had a couple of hours to explore a little bit of Inverness and the weather was absolutely beautiful, but very cold! Then we hopped on the CityLink at 17:45 for the final three-hour journey up to Skye. It was a shame it was dark outside on the bus, as I can imagine the landscape was unbelievable.
We finally arrived in Portree at around 21:00, where we were met by our wonderful host Angus. We arrived at his beautiful home, where he had prepared a very delicious dinner and dessert for us!
We’re looking forward to exploring more of Skye today. We are very excited for the concert tonight, and look forward to seeing you there!
