VoxCarnyx

Hip new Classical festival goes live at the Barrowland Ballroom, writes KEN WALTON

Fancy a night out at the Glasgow Barrowland? To 1930s’ Glaswegians that would have meant a spot of Lindy Hopping to the latest big band sensation. Fast forward to the 1960s and the associated Bible John murders might have made them think twice. Then came The Clash, Bowie, Franz Ferdinand and Texas, et al. So how come Glasgow’s gritty popular music mecca is the venue this week for the posh punters of the Classical music scene?

Yes, we’re talking high-brow string ensembles from across Europe, spearheaded by our very own Scottish Ensemble, with world premieres, snatches of Mahler, Sibelius and Gabrieli, also in other venues spread around the city. But we’re also talking energy, innovation, DJs, mixed-genre and a genuinely hip abandonment of the stuffiness and formality usually associated with Classical performance.

It’s all part of The Bridge Festival, a European-funded initiative that has brought together four like-minded ensembles – Ensemble Resonanz from Germany, the Trondheim Soloists from Norway, the PLMF Music Trust from Estonia, and the UK’s Scottish Ensemble – to “embed” classical music in “everyday spaces” around Glasgow in a series of events happening between 21 and 24 April that are geared at attracting diverse new audiences, not least the young. 

Which is why Thursday’s opening gig, Nachtsmusik, is at the iconic Barrowland. Mahler’s Adagietto (from his Fifth Symphony) is just one of a couple of familiar reference points in a programme otherwise pulsating with challenging new sounds. All four ensembles are involved, launching two world premieres – one by British experimental rock musician and film composer Mica Levi, the other by former frontman of the Estonian progressive rock ensemble In Spe, Erkki-Sven Tüür – and including indie-rock guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s 48 Responses to Polymorphia in dialogue with its muse, Penderecki’s original Polymorphia.

“It’s all about diversity and touching different sound worlds,” explains Jenny Jamison, chief executive of the Scottish Ensemble, which is lead player in this inaugural project for the collaborating groups. “Our advantage is that we can share Classical music in ways some of our larger symphonic peers might not. We’re small and flexible, so we can challenge the boundaries and edges of classical music and take it to different physical spaces. 

“Also, a lot of the music featuring in The Bridge is by composers with feet in different genres. That’s again about the openness and porousness of classical music. There are some conventions that are more formal, maybe more difficult for a new listener, but we’re trying to present it in venues and with repertoire that make it easier for any listener to find a way in.”

Not that the SE is new to such genre-bending projects. On Friday evening at the Tramway on Glasgow’s south side they resurrect Anna Meredith’s Anno, first performed there in 2016, for which the composer created her own electro-acoustic response to Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons, performed live with the original and with graphic illustrations by Meredith’s visual artist sister, Eleanor. 

Later on Friday the Ensemble Resonanz presents a “club night” – music ranging from John Cage to Lou Reed – in the informal intimacy of Shawland’s Glad Cafe. For Saturday and Sunday, the locations are former ecclesiastical gems: a more traditional programme in the Mackintosh Church featuring the Trondheim Soloists in Grieg and Sibelius; and a finale by the Ensemble Resonanz, Derya’s Songbook, at the eclectic arts hub St Lukes, performing trans-cultural music inspired by Turkish, Anatolian, Kurdish and Greek songs.

“I guess we’re trying to attract a curious audience,” says Jamison, who sees this first initiative as a welcome panacea to the challenges Brexit has wrought on UK artists in terms of European involvement and interaction. Supported by Creative Europe, The Bridge is a  4-year project enabling its participants to develop new ideas to make Classical music more exciting and inclusive to new audiences. 

Twelve audience development events, a summer academy, a bespoke website, and the Glasgow festival itself, are testament to the wider, sustainable goals of the network. “We’re also talking to groups from Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic,” Jamison reveals. In another of the Glasgow events, the PLMF Music Trust teams some of Estonia’s top professionals with a young string quartet from the Tallinn Music High School. Jameson and her European counterparts have also agreed an exchange initiative that will see the professional players feature in reciprocal performance schemes. 

Beyond this week’s Glasgow festival, though, are we likely to see The Bridge extended to further parts of Scotland? “Logistics and cost place limitations on how far we can go with that,” she believes. “It’s more likely that, as a network, as a ‘string super orchestra’, we would be open to collaborating with existing festivals, here and across Europe.”

This week is a prototype, and future plans will be formulated on the basis of its success, Jameson says. But already new projects are in the pipeline. “As well as the commissions this week, we’ve commissioned a composer to do a digital youth and amateur access piece which we’ll be launching after the festival to try and connect with young players across the cities we all work in.

“We would also expect our Bridge partners to continue as our principal commissioning partners, resulting in us being able to bring more new work into our own activity here in Scotland.”  

The Bridge Festival runs from 21-14 April at venues across Glasgow. Full details at www.bridgestrings.eu or www.scottishensemble.co.uk