Aurora Orchestra, Donald Grant

As the days shorten and the year’s end draws nearer, journey with Aurora Orchestra and Donald Grant to the Scottish islands, where the winter nights are long and isolating. Share in an evening inspired by the hardship, wild beauty and and community spirit of an island winter, with traditional Gaelic and contemporary string music.

The shadows of a winter evening settle in the world premiere of Donald Grant’s Thuit an Oidhche Oirnm (The Night Overtook Us). We journey through Gaelic lands to the sounds of traditional tunes, woven together by arrangements and original songs by Donald Grant: a lullaby tells us of a beheading, the music of hundreds of years of islander communities rings. David Fennessy’s Hirta Rounds takes us to remote Hirta in the St Kilda archipelago, from which a thriving community was forced to evacuate in 1930, leaving only the shells of their houses behind. Dive into Scottish folklore in Aielie Robertson’s The Black Pearl, before glimmers of hope for the returning sun are offered in Helen Grime’s To See the Summer Sky, a reminder that brighter days always lie ahead.

Collaboration lies at the heart of Donald Grant’s music making, a passion which began playing traditional Gaelic tunes as a boy with his father in the Scottish Highlands. Tonight he continues his love of making music with friends, joining Aurora’s string players and other Celtic musicians to bring the sounds of remote Scottish island life to Kings Place.