Lisa Robertson:
Ceòl na Mara

Flaskepost (message in a bottle) is a piece of music inspired by the ocean, connecting Scotland and Norway. The music is based upon different field recordings created in the Lofoten archipelago located in the North of Norway, where the the composer, Lange, is based. The work explores the musical potential of the ocean itself as well as imagining different creatures and other things you can encounter in the depths.

The piece also reflects on the ocean as a pathway, both for human travel throughout time, but also for enormous amounts of plastic waste that through the Gulf Stream end up in Lofoten, from all over the world. The music is inspired by the image of sending a cry for help and rescue with a message in a bottle.

Flaskepost – a message written on a scrap of paper, rolled up and put into an empty bottle and set adrift on the ocean; traditionally, a method used by castaways to advertise their distress to the outside world.

Note by Tine Surel Lange

I Chrysalis
II Nets of Wings
III Fractures

These pieces are a response to paintings by Michiko Theurer in dialogue with Virginia Woolf’s The Waves.

'Look,' said Rhoda; 'listen. Look how the light becomes richer, second by second, and bloom and ripeness lie everywhere; and our eyes, as they range round this room with all its tables, seem to push through curtains of colour, red, orange, umber and queer ambiguous tints, which yield like veils and close behind them and one thing melts into another.'

– Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Note by Katherine Balch

Both the solo and the tape part of Social Sounds of Whales at Night are drawn almost entirely from the song of the humpback whale. The soloist begins by playing a transcription of the humpback whale song, while the tape part begins as an accompanimental background made out of altered recordings humpback whale song, sperm whale clicks, musician wren song and one grey seal 'rup' call. As the humpback whale song itself begins to emerge from the tape part, the flute and the whale sing in duet, before the soloist takes over with an improvisation based on the whale's musical language. Social Sounds was commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts for Helen Pridmore. Thanks to Patrick Miller, Luke Rendell, Thomas Goetz and Henrik Brumm for the whale, seal and bird recordings.

Note by Emily Doolittle

'...the world all shut out… unchanged by any of man's doings…It was older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts and seafaring Norsemen and Columba's priests... the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap of the billows… all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages.' - R L Stevenson, 1887

The piece was inspired by R L Stevenson’s impressions of the island of Erraid’s extraordinary ‘seascape’ with endless Atlantic skies, wind and the sea hitting the senses and strikingly bright air. The piece contrasts this description with the current issue of increasing pollution. I turn the feeling of breathing in a rush of fresh sea air into a musical feature. Gradually, the length of the ‘breaths’ decreases, like a person increasingly struggling and gasping for breath.

Note by Lisa Robertson

This piece was written for Sequoia Duo as part of their Transplanted project, an exploration of Scotland’s plant life. I found inspiration in the Taraxacum Pankhurstianum; a unique species of dandelion found on the remote island on St Kilda, a remote and barren archipelago in the Atlantic miles off the coast of Scotland, once inhabited by a thriving community but long since deserted.

The title comes from a chapter in the book The Life and Death of St Kilda by Tom Steel.

'They (St Kildans) were unique and inflexible. Neither they nor their way of life was capable of change, particularly the violent changes in values and attitudes that would have been required to continue the struggle. The attempts made by the few to stave off evacuation were noble and well-intentioned but bore marks of the pathos and futility of working against the inevitable. St Kilda stood in the Atlantic, the changeless amid the changed. All that could be done was to wait and allow the men and women of Village Bay the courtesy and privilege of making for themselves the decision that would make Nature's defeat of man a reality'.

Note by David Fennessy

The idea for Vent nocturne (Night Wind) first occurred to me while I was reading a bilingual edition on the poems of Georg Trakl. This synchronicity of the two languages – German and French – led me to muse on the relationship between the viola and electronics.

The work is in two parts: Sombres mirroirs (Dark Mirrors) and Soupirs de l'obscur (Breaths of the Obscure). These, as their names suggest, focus first on symmetrical thinking and then on the variation of the glissando, not unlike a sigh, that rounds off the phrases.

To me the sound of the viola has always suggested that of breathing, which, along with the wind, became a major element of the electronic part.

Note by Kaija Saariaho

Storm and Still was composed for the Danish art group 'Storm and Still' in 1988 and world premiered at their exhibition 'My time as Pilot' the same year.

The work is dedicated to Morten Zeuthen who also played the world premiere performance.

Note by Hans Abrahamsen

Sluaisreadh is an onomatopoeic Gaelic word meaning the peaceful sound of the sea ebbing and swirling against the shore. The piece journeys from this tranquil sound to increasingly destructive, dangerous sea sounds which are the consequences of climate change.

The piece transitions through sections, each one representing a Gaelic word used to describe types of sea sounds in different contexts: sluaisreadh (swirling), cireasail (giggling), glumaradh (glugging against a boat), seathan (rolling on a wide open sea), ròcail (croaking, roaring into a cave), sachdadh (wheezing), corghlaich (noisy confusion), gaoir (wailing), sad (venomous). The wealth of such evocative descriptions is testament to the profound connection to the sea in Gaelic culture.

Material is derived from the speech rhythms of these words and two Gaelic songs about the sea. Instrumental parts blend with field recordings I took of the sea in my home area, Morvern in the West Highlands, during different weather conditions.

Note by Lisa Robertson

Videographer Gregor Sinclair

Artist Biographies

Daniel Shao

flute

Daniel Shao is a versatile British-Chinese flautist who regularly performs with orchestras, ensembles and as a soloist. Praised for showing 'virtuosity, charm, and charisma in abundance' (Ivan Hewitt, The Telegraph), he has played guest principal with the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Ulster Orchestra. Daniel was previously Associate Member second flute with the Philharmonia from 2019-2021, Principal Piccolo with the European Union Youth Orchestra, and a Fellow at Music Academy of the West in California. He has performed internationally at venues including Carnegie Hall, Vienna Musikverein and Tokyo Bunka Kaikan with the London Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.

David Alberman

violin

David Alberman was Principal Second Violin in the LSO since from 1998–2023. Born in London, he received his LRAM diploma from the Royal Academy of Music at 16. After playing with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the LSO, he became a Concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A long-standing interest in contemporary music led him in 1986 to join the internationally renowned Arditti Quartet, with whom he took part in the world premieres of more than 200 works, and made a number of recordings which won prizes internationally.

David enjoys coaching, has appeared as Guest Concertmaster for the LSO, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Scottish Chamber and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras and the Bayrischer Rundfunkorchester, and as soloist with the Orchestre de Lille, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna, among others.

Chihiro Ono

viola

Born in Chiba, Japan, Chihiro Ono is a London-based Japanese sound artist and violinist specialising in chamber music, experimental music and sound art. She has performed at major festivals and venues across the UK and worldwide and regularly works with esteemed experimental and classical ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Apartment House, CHROMA, London Mozart Players, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and more.

Valerie Welbanks

cello

Canadian-born Val Welbanks leads a busy chamber music career in London as the cellist of both the Marsyas Trio and Ligeti Quartet, with whom she has been playing for nearly fourteen years. With both groups, Val has accrued experience globally and built a reputation for thoughtful performances of contemporary music.

Rachael Gibson

electronics

Rachael Gibson is a guitarist and composer based in Merseyside. Her practice has become increasingly focused on the exploration of tactile approaches to music making and engagement. She is particularly interested in how alternative notation practices and technology can be used to interrogate the relationship between touch and performance. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Composition at the University of Liverpool, funded by the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership.