The fourth Glasgow Cathedral Festival is taking place next month.
Running from Thursday 26 to Saturday 28 September, with seven concerts, workshops and tours packed into the September weekend.
As ever, the festival offers the opportunity to visit and enjoy the striking surroundings of the city’s oldest building—this year presenting a diverse artistic programme that sheds new light on our cultural heritage.
The evening concert series for 2019 begins with a performance by two members of the pioneering collective Bedroom Community, a group of ‘creatively diverse artists who are drawn to the murky spaces between genres’. Organist James McVinnie and violinist Daniel Pioro play with the vast ambience of the cathedral to explore the relationships between popular works from the last four centuries, including music by Biber, Vaughan Williams and Nico Muhly.
The inaugural GCF Late descends to the vaults of the cathedral for an evening of contemporary music, presented in collaboration with Glasgow Experimental Music Series. World premieres by Hunter Coblentz and Edwin Hillier feature everything from tuned wine glasses to analogue dictaphones and singers moving throughout the lower church, creating a visceral and immersive performance.
Returning to the popular GCF venue Drygate, the next evening event, Step+ celebrates Scotland’s national heritage in a new collaboration between Scottish step dancer Alison Carlyle and early music ensemble Concerto Caledonia. This is followed after dinner by the world/jazz fusion ensemble Mezcla, whose music blends soulful jazz and energetic ethnic grooves.
In 2019, GCF maintains its commitment to accessibility to the arts, offering reduced-price tickets to our evening performances for students and those registered unemployed, as well as a selection of free, unticketed daytime events. The Solem Quartet – winner of the 2014 Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Competition, who perform regularly across the UK and internationally – give a lunchtime recital featuring works by Haydn and Beethoven.
Glasgow Cathedral Festival also have a performance from Anniesland and St Mungo’s RC primary schools alongside professional musicians and workshop leaders, who collaborate throughout September on GCF’s first large-scale education project.
In addition, they will offer special tours of the cathedral – with an exploration of the graveyard and its more noteworthy residents, as well as a repeat of last year’s oversubscribed tour of the building’s striking stained glass windows.
The finale of the festival, and the biggest event to date, sees John Butt – Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow and director of the renowned Dunedin Consort – conduct the combined forces of Glasgow University Chapel Choir, Glasgow Cathedral Choir, four international operatic soloists and a full orchestra, in the UK premiere of a new completion of Mozart’s Requiem.
The public contact details for GCF are info@gcfestival.com
Glasgow Cathedral Festival is operated by the Society of Friends of Glasgow Cathedral. The Society of Friends is a charitable, non-religious organisation that oversees the care and preservation of the cathedral for posterity. It encourages both Glasgow residents and visitors to experience the unique architectural and historical legacy of the city’s oldest building, as well as supporting artistic activity in and around the cathedral.
The festival brochure can be viewed HERE.
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