Nicola Benedetti returns with online teaching videos

The Benedetti Foundation has announced the return of the With Nicky Series – an online series of educational videos from Scots violinist Nicola Benedetti. These will provide information, guidance, and support for musicians throughout their musical and personal development. Each video will be released on the first of every month starting on Monday 1 March…

Read More

Special release from The Macallan Archival Series

The Macallan Archival Series is turning back the clock as it celebrates the period when it was taken to a wider audience for the first time. Folio 4 remembers the legendary advertising campaigns of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that brought The Macallan to the public’s attention outside of Scotland. It features an advertisement including…

Read More

A brief encounter with some true Russian greats

Edinburgh gave a warm welcome on Sunday afternoon to the St Petersburg Philharmonic, under the baton of Vassily Sinaisky, a big hitter replacement for the orchestra’s indisposed 80-year-old music director, Yuri Temirkanov. Whether the crowd in the almost sold out Usher Hall had come to see the Russians or specifically to hear Rachmaninov’s much loved…

Read More

Polished recording from a musically mature group

Released last month, Free One is the debut album from five thoroughly seasoned musicians. Each is highly accomplished in their art, with the mandolin of Laura-Beth Salter and guitarist Jenn Butterworth providing the rhythmic drive to support the silky fiddles provided by Aileen Gobbi, Fiona MacAskill and Laura Wilkie. From the opening atmospheric strains of Aileen’s Nonna Pina…

Read More

Jazz master Arturo takes audience on a journey

Internationally renowned jazz saxophonist, Arturo Tappin performed a 5 star concert at The Outhouse, demonstrating his all-round professionalism and extraordinary talent on everything from the clarinet to saxophone and flute. The programme was a musical trip around the Caribbean Islands and took in all-time classics from Acker Bilk to modern jazz. Thrown into the mix…

Read More

The fantastic four power on in Rura’s new album

Four go on alone in Rura’s third album which, for the first time, is a wholly instrumental recording following the departure of singer Adam Holmes at the end of 2016. It is a testament to the confidence the remaining band members have in their own musical ability to defer seeking a new vocalist either from…

Read More

Record-breaking musical comes to Edinburgh this month

Tim Firth’s new British musical featuring Take That hits will play in Edinburgh from 10-14 July. The Band tells the story of five 16 year-old friends in 1992 who are big fans of ‘the band’. Twenty-five years later, the 40-something women are reunited and once more try to fulfil their dream of meeting their heroes.…

Read More

Appeal for communities to tune in to musical instrument amnesty

Musical groups across Scotland are being ask to collect and re-use instruments as part of a ‘musical instrument amnesty’. The Zero Waste Scotland initiative, which is part of Pass it on Week 2018, seeks to gather instruments that are no longer being used and find them new homes, writes Lewis Blythe. Local music groups are…

Read More