NEWS

Tectonics Glasgow 2017 breaks the boundaries of new music

Here we go with the fifth Tectonics Glasgow. Before you dig into this year’s programme, we want to say a big thank you to everyone who’s come along and taken the festival to heart. We hope you’ve had some great experiences, made some discoveries and had your world shaken up a little bit since we launched in 2013. Although it’s the fifth Tectonics in Glasgow, it’s the 19th overall, and this summer Athens will be the latest city to join the Tectonics family.

Roscoe Mitchell has been pushing the boundaries of jazz for decades and he’ll both open and close this year’s festival with a solo set and a work for soloists and orchestra, while Eddie Prévost gives his early 70s piece Spirals a new treatment, featuring many of this year’s performers as contributors. We’re also delighted that The Necks will be making their Tectonics Glasgow debut after their memorable appearance at Tectonics Adelaide. It’s worth shouting about how many amazing female artists we have this year. The music of Canadian composer Linda Catlin Smith is threaded throughout the weekend (with both new and recent works), and there are works from Edinburgh-based composer Shiori Usui, and cellist Lori Goldston.

Ash Reid’s performance promises to pose questions about female identity, while the trio of Julia Holter, Catherine Lamb and Laura Steenberge take the closing spot on Saturday: and brace yourselves for the unforgettable sound of Chyskyyrai who’s collaborating with Tim Hodgkinson and Ken Hyder.

New York’s Yarn/Wire collaborate with the BBC SSO in a classic work by François-Bernard Mâche as well as recent works by Andrew McIntosh and Thomas Meadowcroft, while Glasgow’s Tut Vu Vu do their unclassifiable thing in the Old Fruitmarket. There are collaborations from John Chantler and Luke Fowler, and Raymond MacDonald and Ilana Halperin, while, as well as being composers in their own right, Tim Parkinson and James Saunders regularly collaborate as performers. You can see them on Sunday along with Saunders’ new work for the BBC SSO, in a concert that also includes a new piece by the young British composer Lawrence Dunn. As usual the Recital Room at City Halls will be taken over for the weekend and this year it’s the turn of Pierre Berthet and Rie Nakajima. Their collaborative installations make use of everyday objects, usually seeking to tease out their inner and actual vibrations. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Enjoy….

Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell curators