In partnership with the Friends of St Cecilia’s Hall and Museum, the Early Music Group of St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh, led by Hilary Michael, presents a concert of works by J.S. Bach, Purcell, and Telemann.

Tim Macdonald (baroque violin) and Claire Garabedian (baroque cello) performing works by James Oswald, William Marshall, J.S. Skinner, and others, using instruments from the Collection.

“A splendid concert, played with vigour and virtuosity, and increasing, as ever in St Cecilia’s Hall, our knowledge of the composers and instruments of the past.” Edinburgh Music Review

The team of McDonald and Kitchen play virtuoso works for recorder with harpsichord by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Corelli. Telemann often specified idiomatic alternative instrumentation for his works. Arranging Italian violin sonatas for recorder was almost a cottage industry, and Bach’s recycling of his own music resulted in masterworks such as a solo violin movement becoming a full-scale cantata. Featuring the 1709 Barton harpsichord.

“Pure Delight”, The Scotsman.

In support of the Friends of St Cecilia’s Hall bursary fund.

An exploration of song and dance music heard during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The programme includes music by Andrea da Firenze, Guillaume de Machaut, and many anonymous composers.

An homage to 20s/30’s jazz including Benny Goodman and Barney Bigard, With three of Glasgow’s finest young jazz musicians: Tom Gibbs (clarinet), Alex Handyside (guitar), and Timmy Allan (bass), and period instruments from the University of Edinburgh’s Musical Instrument Collection, notably a clarinet from the Shackleton Collection.

Supported by the University of Edinburgh and the Shackleton Fund.

George Weir, a recent graduate of the RCS in Glasgow, performs music for violin and harpsichord by Bach (Sonata in G BWV 1021), Handel (Sonata in D major) and Corelli (Sonata op. 6 no. 5), as well as an unaccompanied violin piece by the little-known Austrian composer Johann Vilsmayr. John Kitchen accompanies on the 1755 Kirkman harpsichord.

Marin Marais, Silvius Leopold Weiss, and J.S. Bach were first admired as virtuosos of their respective instruments: viol, lute, and keyboard. As composers and improvisers they took inspiration from each other’s harmonic language and flourishing and particular ornamentation. These three composers are brought together again, with ”clair-obscur” pieces of indescribable darkness and melancholy, in contrast with moments of brightness and serenity.

Supported by the Keyboard Trust

“A memorable evening combining erudition and entertainment with an opportunity to discover another jewel in the capital … “