Published on Monday 23 February Written by David Smythe The Scottish Ensemble has a track record of picking really interesting artists to work with and certainly the unusual combination of classical saxophone with the Ensemble promised much more than curiosity value. Amy Dickson is a London based Australian saxophonist, twice Grammy-nominated, and a breakthrough artist… Read more »

Written by Michael Tumelty Published on Thursday 26 February 2015 ***** A few weeks ago, while listening to the Scottish Ensemble’s electrifying new recording of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade For Strings, there was a wee man in my head telling me that this was how they were going to do the pieces in… Read more »

Written by John Worrack Published on Tuesday 30 January 2015 Coupling Tchaikovsky’s Serenade with Shostakovich’s Second Quartet seems eccentric even for an ensemble that, so the record blurb tells us, ‘habitually blends music from different ages, offering new perspectives and making unexpected connections’. Actually, it works well and is cleverly done. The performance of the… Read more »

Written by Richard Morrison Published on Saturday 14 February 2015 The main interest here is Jonathan Morton’s new string-orchestra arrangement of Shostakovich’s Second String Quartet, with Morton himself leading the excellent Scottish Ensemble and playing the haunting, Jewish-inflected violin solo in the slow movement. This wartime music (1944) has an epic, tragic and at times… Read more »

Written by Fiona Maddocks Published on Sunday 22 February 2015 Built around a dozen string players, the Scottish Ensemble is a byword for vigorous music-making, combining the prowess of solo playing with the discipline of small-scale ensemble. Here they find connections and departure points in one Russian and one Soviet work. Their performance of Tchaikovsky’s smiling… Read more »