A quick heads-up about a forthcoming mini festival that will, i’m sure, turn out to pack a punch inversely proportional to its duration. Alba New Music is a new Scottish charity “devoted to celebrating the sonic avant garde”. Following a couple of one-off gigs earlier this year, they’re launching their first weekend of concerts, which will take place in Edinburgh on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 October. The line-up/repertoire is lip-smackingly inviting: on the Friday evening, Huddersfield guitar hero Diego Castro Magas will be giving a recital including music by Wieland Hoban and Richard Barrett alongside two works by Aaron Cassidy: The Pleats of Matter (which i found positively ear-boggling back at Electric Spring 2015) and the first UK performance of the electronics-only permutation of The wreck of former boundaries. Saturday is crammed with three events, starting with a free lunchtime concert by Edinburgh Experimental Musicians, including a diverse mix of pieces by John Hails, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Robert Ashley and Pauline Oliveros. In the early evening, flautist Richard Craig will be performing music by James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough and Fabrice Fitch, followed later by singer Peyee Chen, who’ll be getting her teeth stuck into works by George Aperghis, Michael Finnissy, Erin Gee, Scott McLaughlin and Jennifer Walshe.
Talk about hitting the ground running – it promises to be a fantastic and pretty intense couple of days. The main concerts are £8 a pop or you can do a triple-whammy for just £20. Full details on the Alba New Music website. i’ll be there trying to get my head around it all, so reviews to follow in due course.
