A unique concert at Aberdeen’s Music Hall this weekend will see pioneering Scottish ensemble Trio HLK team up with the world’s premier solo percussionist, Aberdeenshire’s own Dame Evelyn Glennie.
Evelyn Glennie, who was born and raised in Aberdeenshire, is the first person in history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, performing worldwide with the greatest orchestras, conductors and artists. She fondly recalls having played the first percussion concerto in the history of The Proms at the Albert Hall in 1992, which paved the way for orchestras around the world to feature percussion concerti.
She said: “My first experience with percussion was seeing and being inspired by my school orchestra at the age of 12. I knew I needed something else to go alongside my piano playing, which was my main instrument at the time. It was an inexplicable feeling but as soon as I saw the percussion section I knew this was the family I belonged to”.
Evelyn had the honour of playing a leading role in the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games in collaboration with director, Danny Boyle. In 2018, Evelyn built upon this inter-disciplinary experience by composing the score for Gregory Doran/The Royal Shakespeare Company’s visionary new production of Troilus and Cressida and joined forces with Jazz Trio ‘HLK’ among a roll-call of other superb sound and performance artists.
A double GRAMMY award winner and BAFTA nominee Evelyn composes music for film, television and music library companies. The film ‘Touch the Sound’ and her enlightening TED speech remain key testimonies to her approach to sound-creation.
Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and now has nearly 100 international awards to date, including the Polar Music Prize and the Companion of Honour. Evelyn continues to inspire and motivate people from all walks of life. Her masterclasses and consultations are designed to guide the next generation.
Trio HLK is the union of three distinct, forward thinking musical personalities. At the centre sits drum and percussion virtuoso Richard Kass. He is a powerful, polyrhythmic engine whose multi-limbic facility affords him a wealth of textures and multiple layers of expression, unimaginable (and certainly unplayable) for most drummers.
Guitarist Ant Law plays a bespoke extended range electric guitar with 8 strings and a variety of effects, creating ambience and sonorities. This, the only electric instrument in the ensemble, provides a contrast to the acoustic elements from the piano and drums. He is known mostly as a jazz musician, but his interests and musicianship spread further and wider than that, and influences from heavy metal and elsewhere shine through at times.
At the helm sits classical pianist and composition mastermind Richard Harrold. From a young age, Harrold was immersed totally in contemporary classical music.
His harmonic realm is the border between tonality and atonality, and there is a strong sense of rhythmic and melodic development throughout his writing.
A belief in the high art of improvisation and intrigue with the infinite art and science of rhythm is what brings H, L and K together. Together they address ambitious improvisational frameworks which often resemble contemporary classical music more than jazz.
HLK’s music rewrites jazz standards, introduces improvisation, rhythmic and harmonic tricks to deliver an explosive interactive tour de force.
The concert takes place this Sunday, March 24 at 7.30pm. Aberdeen Performing Arts Director of Programming and Creative Projects, Ben Torrie, said: “We are particularly pleased to be welcoming home one of the North-east’s most significant musical figures in Dame Evelyn Glennie, to perform at the Music Hall. The calibre of these artists is world class, so to bring them together for this concert is really going to be an exciting performance and a special evening that the Music Hall is proud to host.
Tickets are available from www.aberdeenperformingarts.com
Dame Evelyn Glennie