VoxCarnyx

With the 50th St Magnus Festival set to kick into action, director Alasdair Nicolson tells Ken Walton what it means to be ‘custodian’ of this iconic event

Personally, the news that Orkney is about to celebrate the 50th annual St Magnus Festival is troubling. I vividly remember the inaugural Festival, not because I was there or knew exactly what was going on, but because in 1977 a buzz had spread among the composition students – no doubt encouraged by their visiting professor Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – at the Manchester music college I was attending. I sensed there was something dynamic happening back in northernmost Scotland. Just how significant it was remained a mystery until I traveled to later festivals as a cub critic. But has it really been half a century?

The early years were, of course, defined by the physical presence of local resident Maxwell Davies (or “Max” as he was universally known), whose music and connections drew artists who may never otherwise have travelled to Orkney, and who considered, along with his indigenous management team, the involvement of local people to be paramount to shaping the character, ambition and success of the Festival. His persona was synonymous with this dynamic, flourishing event.

The nature of that success – from major world premieres and the bold programming of new music to local drama (the traditional Johnsmas Foy) and music projects involving school children – has been well-enough documented through the years, as have the key figures, many no longer with us, who shaped the profile of successive Festivals. 

Who can forget such noble presences as local author George Mackay Brown lurking modestly among regular audiences, or visiting luminaries happy to muck in with the mysterious bus arrangements that whisked audiences from one venue to the next. The sight of actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales settling themselves on a bus, complete with shared travel rug to warm their legs, was a tender one, especially when they alighted casually at the other end to deliver, with son Sam, a thoroughly absorbing performance of Stravinsky’s A Soldiers Tale.

Fast forward to recent years, especially following Max’s death a decade ago, and the fundamentals are the same, even if the profile has evolved to reflect a broader artistic vision, fierce economic reality (big orchestra visits are more prohibitive), increased competition (other festivals have arisen in Scotland modelled on St Magnus), even the expectations of new-generation Orcadians.

The person overseeing all this for the past 15 years is composer and Festival director Alasdair Nicolson. And as the 50th Festival approaches (19-28 June) he is doubly aware of the importance of balancing legacy with future sustainability. 

“There are folk in the Festival’s background that were significant artistically in the wider world of the arts, not just related to St Magnus or Orkney,” he says. “I suppose the two most prominent names were Max and George Mackay Brown. They still feature: they may not now be at the centre of things always, but I think that’s because we are developing as a festival; and also, because our funding and the nature of the world we inhabit these days as a public funded organisation places a lot of demands on us on what and how we need to be doing things, the issues you need to be tackling.”

The one thing forever set in stone, and what gives the Festival its unique charm, is Orkney’s physical detachment from the mainland. Nicolson, who grew up on the Inner Hebrides, fully recognises that. “It’s vital to keep in mind what works on a remote island off the north coast of Scotland, where all the things we’re experiencing in life at the moment – cost of living, cost of fuel – impacts significantly on the way we do stuff and what is is possible for us.”

Looking through the highlights for this celebratory year, possibilities are reflected in a generous weighing of ambition and practicality. A new performance space has been created at the Orkney Auction Mart, Kirkwall’s fully-functioning cattle market whose sale ring hosted a production of Carmen several years ago complete with distant bovine chorus. “This is an adjacent industrial shed, not dissimilar in size to the nearby Pickaquoy Centre,” Nicolson explains. “The thing is, we haven’t that many ‘true’ venues in Orkney, so we have to make them up!” It plays host to an opening concert by the newly-formed Festival Orchestra (19 June), a performance of Mozart’s Requiem by the Festival Chorus (21 June), the premiere of a new theatre piece with music, Jasper the Cat, by the local Assembly Project (23 June), local folk group FARA (25 June), and a Festival finale by the award-winning Co-operation Band (27 June)

While bringing major symphony orchestras is now a more taxing challenge for Nicolson – remember Isaac Stern, Andre Previn and the RPO coming to Orkney for the 10th anniversary Festival in 1986? – creating his own Festival Orchestra has proved a more practical initiative. “We’ve brought together members of the BBC SSO, SCO, LSO and Birmingham Royal Ballet, plus younger string players auditioned from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and elsewhere.” The opener in their welcome concert, conducted by Nicolson, is Maxwell Davies’ Welcome to Orkney”.

Nicolson’s creative fingerprint also features in Jasper the Cat. “It’s something I’ve been threatening to write for some time. Jasper was a well known cat in Albert Street where our office is. He even had his own Facebook page. He’d often sit in the middle of the road cleaning his bits as cats do and traffic would just have to wait. He died a couple of years ago and I thought it would be great to do something for kids. I’ve written the story and now the music – a Peter and the Wolf sort of thing. There’s even a bit for the audience to join in.”

Like so many Festivals this year, Nicolson has included a major tribute to the late trumpeter and RCS principal John Wallace: a performance in St Magnus Cathedral (26 June) of The Invisible Symphony, a mammoth transcription by Wallace of Gabrieli’s antiphonal Canzoni et Sonata, performed as a surround sound spectacle by the Wallace Collection and Co-operation Band. 

“John, of course, played Max’s trumpet concerto and was involved with many other things to do with Orkney,” he recalls. “I spent many zoom calls last summer, until he  sadly passed away, working out how we could do this work. It was his absolute dream to get the Gabrieli into St Magnus Cathedral, though discovering subsequently that the Co-operation Band’s numbers had swelled significantly this year left me with the challenge of fitting them all into the venue.”

As a neat quirk, Nicolson has programmed 50 events for the 50th Festival. “Actually not quite”, he admits. “We had to drop a Johnsmas Foy [the Festival’s traditional local community theatre production] when one of its key members had to withdraw late in the process.” Nonetheless a healthy variety of presentation styles offers choice in abundance.

The Stromness chamber music series features American-Armenian viola da gamba player Lucine Musaelian (20 June), pianists Samson Tsoy (21 June) and Pavel Kolesnikov (22 June), the Fibonacci String Quartet (23 June) and the Hebrides Ensemble (24 June). A focus on Icelandic music, reflecting the country’s close historic connections with Orkney, includes: medieval poetry and song from the all-male ensemble Voces Thule (23 June)); the UK premiere of Mörsugur, a 2022 opera based on Icelandic mythology for soprano and cinematic audiovisuals; and a solo recital by Icelandic-American cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir (22 June).

There are performances too from Rory McCleery’s Marian Consort, guitarist-lutenist Jacques Carroll-Leitao, and a percussion extravaganza featuring Owen Gunnell’s O Duo with students from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Folk music, poetry, storytelling, a special retrospective Festival exhibition widen the experience. As will the introduction this year of a celebratory Festival parade. “The whole community’s getting behind that one,” says Nicolson. 

Challenging as his role is in these tough economic times, Nicolson is optimistic that the Festival will deal with the issues and secure a future beyond the current milestone. His role, he stresses, is that of “custodian”. “In recent years we’ve faced the danger you might not get the funding you need, that Covid was so bad it killed the atmosphere as it were, yet I’m pleased to say we’re in good health, still going at 50 and still delivering stuff that others don’t, delivering new things.

“I‘ve also put things on stage that people in Orkney wouldn’t otherwise see, proud to have brought up the BBC Symphony Orchestra recently from London – it had never been before – but more importantly, to have given opportunities to younger performers before they become the ones that are everywhere. Pavel [Kolesnikov] and Samson [Tsoy] are back this year – they were with us with us before they were known. Mostly, it’s about maintaining and developing and making sure the St Magnus Festival remains lively, that it has life in it.”

Orkney’s St Magnus Festival runs from 19-28 June. Full programme details at www.stmagnusfestival.com