Sounds of St Cecilia’s 2025
As part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Friends of St Cecilia’s Hall & Museum organise a popular series of concerts.
Full price: £15
Members’ discount: £12
Additional concession: £5 (Student, Unemployed, Disabled, Under 18).
Tickets available in advance from the Fringe Box Office http://www.edfringe.com or on the door. Member discount available on the door on production of a membership card.
If you would like to join the Friends of St Cecilia’s Hall & Museum, there are more details on the Join page.
Clair-Obscur: Apolline Khou
Saturday 9 August 3pm (1 hour)
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.
Delights for Violin and Harpsichord: George Weir, John Kitchen
Wednesday 13 August 3pm (1 hour)
George Weir, at present studying at 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.
The Early Jazz Clarinet: Tom Gibbs, Alex Handyside, Timmy Allan
Friday 15 August 3pm (1 hour)
This concert pays homage to jazz clarinettists of the 1920/30’s including Benny Goodman and Barney Bigard, and features a trio of Glasgow’s finest young jazz musicians: Tom Gibbs (clarinet), Alex Handyside (guitar), and Timmy Allan (bass). The performance includes 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.
L’homme Armé: Héloïse Bernard, Eva Moreda Rodriguez, Eric Thomas
Wednesday 20 August 3pm (1 hour)
At the Heart of the Hundred Years’ War: an exploration of the music heard during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – spanning Burgundy, the Flemish region, and England. The programme includes music by Guillaume de Machaut, Gilles Binchois, Guillaume Dufay and more.
The Art of the Arranger: Gerry McDonald, John Kitchen
Saturday 23 August 3pm (1 hour)
The critically acclaimed team of McDonald and Kitchen perform virtuoso works for recorder with continuo and obbligato harpsichord by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Corelli, which also exist in alternative versions. Ever commercially astute, 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.
Friends of St Cecilia's Hall & Museum 