Taking classical music to communities all around Scotland, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s annual Summer Tour is never less than eventful, writes Ken Walton
For once, a good news story about Scotland’s ferries: the day a group of Harris-bound Scottish Chamber Orchestra musicians forced one of the Highlands and Islands’ finest vessels to about-turn and effectively rescue a concert.
It’s one of several travel tales cellist Su-a Lee and bassoonist Alison Green share as they recount over 60 years between them of SCO Summer Tours – an annual initiative that this year sees the Edinburgh-based band deliver seven different programmes over 20 performances to some of the remotest communities around Scotland between 11 June and 29 August.
“We were going from Benbecula to Harris, four of us travelling in a three-car convoy to catch the ferry,” Lee says of the ferry drama. “When we got there it was the wrong ferry, which gave us 15 minutes to travel 15 miles to reach the right one along a single-track road facing oncoming traffic. We tried calling the ferry company to explain we had a concert that night in Harris and could they hold it back, but that just went to a central switchboard. There was no option: we just had to put our foot down.
“When we eventually screeched onto the pier, disaster, the boat was already on its way. We were waving and hollering, and blow me, the doors started coming back down. It actually sailed back to pick us up, and we were met by cheers from the passengers on deck who’d witnessed our panic. More importantly, we made the concert on time.”
It’s episodes like this, and the players’ shoulder-to-shoulder interaction with the public, which creates the fondest of memories of these popular tours. “It’s really like a family holiday,” Lee insists. “You arrive at venues no bigger than a rehearsal room and wonder how on earth the audience will fit in. When they arrive, there’re no boundaries between us and them, everyone’s huddling together and talking about the midges.”
Green agrees. “Chatting to folk at the intervals we get to hear what music they’ve experienced, what opportunities they get to hear concerts, which often amount to very few. They value the fact we come to them.”
This year’s tour revisits many such communities, from Hawick and Castle Douglas in the Borders to Golspie and Kingussie in the Highlands, with the occasional division of the orchestra into separate wind and string units where space and practicality dictates. So, while the SCO Wind Soloists open the tour with a summery cocktail of Mendelssohn, Mozart and Françaix in the Trossachs and the Cowal Peninsula, the SCO Strings are simultaneously in Brechin, Fochabers and Fortrose treating audiences to Piazzolla, Sibelius and Dvorak.
New destinations are always welcome, says Green. “On the recommendation of one of our viola players, the winds are going this year to the tiny coastal village of Kames. It’s really beautiful apparently, overlooking the Kyles of Bute, so I’m definitely going for a swim.”
Both agree it’s important to pitch the tour repertoire carefully. “You have to remember these communities might get only one live concert a year at the very most, so we do always try to put in something that is a total crowd-pleaser alongside something a little more challenging, but which they still get pleasure from,” Lee explains.
Tuneful Schubert symphonies are a particular feature this summer. Kingussie, Golspie and Findhorn audiences get the composer’s pivotal Fifth alongside Ravel and Jacques Ibert; The Sixth (or “Little C Major Symphony”) rubs shoulders with 20th century Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson’s picturesque Pastorale Suite in Stirling, Dunoon and Hawick, but also features in the SCO’s mid-tour opening concert for the East Neuk Festival, while the fledgling Second sits with Rossini and Spohr in August’s final tour performances in Airdrie, Blair Atholl and Inverness.
If there’s one programme guaranteed to stimulate curiosity, it’s July’s Summer Classics in Hamilton, Castle Douglas and Ayr, which couples Haydn and Beethoven symphonies with the world premiere of Jay Capperauld’s saxophone concerto Rewired.
New Cumnock-born Capperauld, still in his mid-thirties, has been a roaring success as the SCO’s current associate composer. “I actually think he’s a genius,” says Lee. “He already has a distinctive voice. Everything he writes for us I recognise him in it, which is a sure sign of originality. He pulls from all different genres and I love the way he does that without slipping into pastiche.”
Green shares that admiration. “We’ll be performing Jay’s Dectet ‘Carmina Gadelica’ in our opening SCO Winds programme,” she explains. She and her colleagues premiered the work earlier this season in a collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. “A dectet [ten players] is quite a challenge to play without a conductor, but it’s so well written. Jay has contributed so much while working with us. He’s definitely one of us now!”
As are most of the soloists featuring throughout the tour. “Just about every concert spotlights a key player from within the orchestra,” Green says, alluding to André Cebrián in Ibert’s Flute Concerto, Cerys Ambrose-Evans in Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto and Maximiliano Martin in Spohr’s Clarinet Concerto No 2. “Even saxophonist Lewis Banks has appeared regularly with us, so it’s wonderful to see him get the solo spot in Jay’s concerto,” Lee adds.
When it comes to conductors, the Summer Tour has traditionally proved a useful testing ground for new relationships. Fresh faces this year include recently appointed Trondheim Symphony Orchestra conductor Adam Hickox, London Mozart Players’ Jonathan Bloxham, and Rossini specialist Jakob Lehmann. “The tour is a safe place to get new people in and discover the chemistry between us,” Lee argues. “But it’s equally important to let audiences see our regulars.” Ebullient principal guest conductor Andrew Manze is on hand to service that requirement.
What could possibly go wrong? “Oh, things sometimes do,” says Lee. “Arriving in Harris once I realised I’d left my books in an Ullapool hotel. A friend said her uncle, a truck driver, was due to drive to Harris and would bring them to me. He did and to get him something to say thanks I drove to a filling station during the concert interval, got held up in the queue and missed the start of the second half. To crown it all, he turned out to be teetotal!”
The SCO’s annual Summer Tour runs from 11 June until 29 August. Full details at www.sco.org.uk/summertour This feature was produced in association with the SCO
