Symposia, RSAMD, Glasgow
MICHAEL TUMELTY
June 22 2006
THE musicians of the RSAMD are just about ubiquitous and unstoppable. Only the arbitrary end of session, it seems, will call a temporary halt to their prolific activity. On Tuesday, the latest batch of compositions from the students in Gordon MacPherson's thriving department was unveiled, organised by Oliver Searle. Gareth Williams arrived hotfoot from the St Magnus Festival to hear an enthralling performance of his Ness, a three-movement essay on tension and relaxation - or, to adapt the amusing introduction by violinist Fergus Hetherington, a study in "constipation" and release.
Joel Harding's Perpetuum St Abile was a novel take on the principle of perpetual motion in music, while Richard Walker's Threnody chose stillness as its fulcrum, with a sense of simmering anger or protest in its faster pages. Anger and violence were not so much latent as blatant in Nicholas Scott's graphic and rather harrowing Seeing Red, to which Chris Litherland's Elasticman provided an apt counterbalance in its murmuring, reflective calm.
There's no competition between these composers, but Litherland, still in his teens and a new name on the academy block, is clearly one to watch, armed as he is already with superb craftsmanship, sensitivity to instrumental colouring, and an evident ability to write clear, focused and impressively coherent music.
McPherson's own Recluse, one of the composer's most lucid, direct and accessible pieces, rounded off a fascinating night, throughout which the young contemporary players of the academy demonstrated their prowess with the modern style.
