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RCS String Dept presents three generations of composers: the celebrated Adagio for Strings put Samuel Barber (1910 -81) at the forefront of C20th music. We dedicate this performance to our dear friend Rinat Ibragimov. US-born Glasgow-based Thomas Wilson (1927 – 2001) wrote his St Kentigern Suite for Glasgow Cathedral’s 850th Anniversary in 1986. His distinctive voice has become a vital part of Scotland’s musical landscape. British composer Errollyn Wallen’s new arrangement (dedicated to the Windrush generation) of Blake’s Jerusalem featured in The Last Night of the Proms. Her powerful Cello Concerto was written for Matthew Sharpe (who featured in last year’s RCS Cello Festival) and first performed in 2008. It’s a rare chance to hear this extraordinary piece performed by prize-winning cellist Madelyn Kowalski.

THOMAS WILSON
St Kentigern Suite for Strings

SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981)
Adagio for Strings

ERROLLYN WALLEN
Cello Concerto

The story of Dido and Aeneas didn’t end with Dido’s death. Errollyn Wallen takes the story forward, interweaving a full performance of Purcell’s great tragedy with her imaginative new partner-piece.

‘Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate' sings Dido at the end of Purcell’s opera. But life isn’t quite as easy as that, and some memories have a destiny of their own. Set several years after the Carthaginian queen’s death, Dido’s Ghost finds Dido’s sister Anna abandoned on the shores of Aeneas’s new kingdom, igniting a murderous jealously in Aeneas’s wife Lavinia – and as events play out, its characters confront a past that refuses to fade.

Errollyn Wallen’s new opera, based on a tale by Roman poet Ovid, embraces and complements Purcell’s original, which is performed in its entirety as the centrepiece of a drama that is both old and new. Performed by the period instruments of the Dunedin Consort, past blurs into present and memory becomes emotion in this ambitious and poignant new commission.