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!
What an amazing day and concert we had in Skye. We were staying in Uig, with the most amazing views and scenery around us. Our brilliant host, Angus, took us on a very adventurous tour around the whole of the Isle of Skye, before the concert.
The weather was constantly ever-changing. One minute it was sunny, the next there were huge black clouds and torrential rain. We went looking for caves, and got stuck in a hailstone storm… we were very wet and cold! We were just in awe of the beauty of Skye. We have attached some pictures we took from our tour of the island. We came across the area in which dinosaur foot prints were found, which was super cool!
After our action-packed tour of the island, we made our way to the venue in Portree to rehearse before the concert at 19:30. Portree is a stunning little town with very cute coloured houses.
The concert went really well, and the audience were extremely kind and receptive. We played a little encore at the end called “Bha là eile ann”, which went down a treat!
Thank you to everyone who came out to watch us!
We then had an early start the morning after, where we caught the 9am bus from Skye to Inverness, for our concert in Nairn!
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.
