Salomé Quartet – Isle of Bute

We had an amazing time at the Isle of Bute yesterday and enjoyed performing to a lovely and warm audience. We fell in love with the island from the first sight and were sad that we didn’t get to see more than a tiny sliver of it – we will definitely have to come again and explore! Our concert was at the beautiful Trinity Church right by the sea front. We have been told that only a few years ago the concerts had an audience of about 30 people, but last night we played to over a hundred, which with only around 5000 people on the entire island is pretty impressive.

We are on the road again after a day in Bute, taking ferries and country trains throughout this tour which is a quite a different travel experience to what we’re accustomed to in London. We are taking in all the sights and are being reminded that people’s lives outside London move at a different pace and we find ourselves tuning into it as well. It’s lovely to stay next to the sea, to breathe in different air, and to see and experience different towns.

Now, we’re on the way to Linlithgow for tonight’s concert. Looking forward to visiting two more places!

 

Salomé Quartet – Dumfries

Today we are in Dumfries, the town of Robert Burns and J.M.Barrie!

We had a lovely afternoon meeting and playing for a delightful group of primary school pupils. We talked about all things strings and played a varied selection of excerpts of string quartet repertoire – safe to say Shostakovich 3rd movement was the winner of the session, with quite a few of them dancing along to this explosive movement.

There was an abundance of enthusiastic interactions and questions, and the most popular question following the Shostakovich was : “how do you not break your instruments when you play that?!”

Our first venue was the birthplace of Peter Pan, Moat Brae. Amongst the many rooms filled with intricate exhibits paying tribute to J.M Barrie and the famous novel, was the room we performed in, overlooking a beautiful garden view through the glass windows – what a magical place for our first concert!

Huge thanks to everyone in the audience, and to those who looked after us so well 😀

Travel Day

We have arrived in Dumfries last night, the first stop of our tour! There was the unique blend of mist and drizzle in the air (we learnt a new word, ‘mizzle’) but other than that we were treated to an exceptionally mild Scottish evening for this time of the year. We kick things off with an afternoon workshop for the local school children and then we will get ready for our evening recital.

We are thrilled about the music we will share with the audiences on this tour. Works by the genius Mendelssohn siblings, Fanny and Felix in the first half, and our favourite Shostakovich quartet in the second half. Felix’s connections with Scotland and love for its exceptional beauty are known far and wide, and we’re excited to see what happens for us when we bring his music to this wonderful country many years later. We also have a very personal connection with Scotland and the Shostakovich’s 3rd quartet, we played this piece on the Isle of Coll in 2021 in what was our first performance to a live audience since the start of the pandemic.

We are excited about playing this programme at the unique venue that is Moat Brae House, the birth place of Peter Pan!

Scholfield-Clarke Duo – Helensburgh Music Society, 11th February 2024

The final day of our the Tunnell Trust tour started out in Ayrshire, with a leisurely drive back to Glasgow for a few hours rest in the afternoon before heading to our last venue in Helensburgh. After such positive experiences at Inverurie Music and Ayr Music Club, we were excited to give the final rendition of our ‘Red, White and Blue’ programme for Helensburgh Music Society!

Our final venue was Helensburgh United Reformed Church, a beautiful space with truly excellent acoustics – and a very pleasant sounding Yamaha grand piano. The space was tied together by the grand facade of the organ behind us – sadly no longer in use, but giving quite the backdrop to the performance.

Iain got acquainted with the instrument quickly, and we put the finishing touches on some of our repertoire before taking a break before the concert. We were provided with some excellent sandwiches and cake to keep us going, which didn’t last long enough to get a picture! We’re grateful to Alan, a member of the society’s committee, for taking some snaps of us as we rehearsed in this space – here we were working on the brand new work in our programme, written specially to be premiered on this tour by composer John De Simone – ‘Another Life’.

  

We had a smashing time with this final performance, going out on a high after a very successful tour! We’re very thankful to Tunnell Trust for their support in organising the three concerts we’ve given this weekend, giving us a wonderful opportunity to reach new audiences with our music, and introduce them to the exciting repertoire of the saxophone. Thanks to all of our hosts and the teams behind each music club for their work in putting on these events, and for looking after us so well with their generous hospitality, it has been an absolute pleasure!

After a combined total of six performances in Arran, Glasgow, Auchterarder, Inverurie, Ayr and Helensburgh, we are definitely ready for a bit of a breather! However, we’re looking forward to future projects, and delighted to have been given this boost by the Tunnell Trust. It’s goodbye from us for now, but wee hope to see you at one of our concerts soon!

Scholfield-Clarke Duo – Ayr Music Club, 10th February 2024

Another fantastic day touring yesterday, starting with the train ride back down from Inverurie – accompanied by huge numbers of rugby fans on their way to the six nations at Murrayfield! Four (somewhat lively) trains later, we found ourselves back in Glasgow for a short rest before the drive down to Alloway for our evening concert with Ayr Music Club.

Our venue for the evening was Alloway Parish Church Halls, an intimate space set up with tables – cabaret style! As we warmed up in the space there were some beautiful skies over Ayr and Alloway, much better than the sleet and snow we had up north on Friday! Later on after the concert the sky was extremely clear, and once we got back to our digs for the evening we got a chance to see the sky lit up with stars (sadly very difficult to photograph!).

     

After rehearsal we were treated to some more delicious food from a local hotel, and had a chance to rest before getting ready for the second performance of the weekend.

We had another very enjoyable concert together sharing our ‘Red, White and Blue’ programme with the local crowd, and speaking to Ayr Music Club members. We were privileged to be their first classical saxophone feature, and it was great to be able to introduce them to lots of new and exciting repertoire – we had many comments from listeners about the surprising versatility of the saxophone!

    

We are looking forward to our third Tunnell Trust sponsored performance tonight in Helensburgh, our sixth and final concert of the ‘Red, White and Blue’ tour!