St Andrews Scottish Songbook: Insights
Saturday 15th Oct, 7.00 - 8.00pm
McPherson Recital Room
Please note the change to the advertised programme. The St Andrews Scottish Songbook will premiere on Friday 9th December 2022, 7pm. Tickets will be on sale on Monday 17th October.
We invite you to join us this Saturday from 7-8pm in the Laidlaw Music Centre for Songbook: Insights, an evening of conversation and song. In an intimate setting, we will go on a journey of discovery into the soon to be published Songbook which features 22-newly commissioned arrangements of Scots and Gaelic Song. Seumas Begg (tenor) and Scott Mitchell will lead the music making, with contributions from a number of the composers including Padruig Morrison, Mary Ann Kennedy, and Eddie McGuire. It will be free to attend, and we will invite you to pay what you feel at the end.
Seumas Begg
Tenor
Born in Perth, tenor Seumas Begg is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. A versatile performer who has covered a broad range of repertory working for companies in the UK and around Europe.
He has just made his Royal Opera House debut in the world premier of Oliver Leith’s opera, Last Days. His further credits include John Yoo The New Prince (Dutch National Opera); Gherardo Gianni Schicchi (Teatro Communale Traviso); Pony Express Rider La Fanciulla del West and Mendel Fiddler on the Roof (Grange Park Opera); Max Fantasio, Ein Tierhaendler and Kellner 1 Der Rosenkavalier (Garsington Opera); Raoul de St. Brioche The Merry Widow, Goro Madama Butterfly and Fenton Falstaff (Opera Bohemia); and Elijah in the world premiere of Navigate the Blood (NOISE). He also recently made his west end debut as Gloucester, Jamy and Grey in the Donmar Warehouse production of Henry V which was broadcast internationally as part of National Theatre live.
Subsequent roles in his repertoire include Spoletta Tosca; Lippo Fiorentino Street Scene; Brighella Ariadne auf Naxos, Gastone La Traviata, Sailor Dido and Aeneas; M. Lacouf Mamelles des Tireseas; Monostatos Die Zauberflöte, Ein Soldat Kaiser von Atlantis.
Scott Mitchell
Piano
Scotland-based pianist Scott Mitchell has performed extensively as a chamber music pianist and accompanist throughout Great Britain, Europe, South America and the Middle East. As a result of his varied chamber music activities he performs regularly at St. John’s Smith Square, Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall in London. He has also appeared at many of the world’s major festivals including the Edinburgh and the Festival Wiener Klassik.
Scott Mitchell has performed with John Wallace (Trumpet), Michael Collins and Emma Johnson (Clarinets), Raphael Wallfisch (Cello), Andrew Watkinson (Violin), Richard Watkins (French Horn), James Bowman (Counter-tenor) and Andrew Kennedy (Tenor), also with the Duke Quartet. He performs regularly in a duo capacity with flautists Wissam Boustany, Katherine Bryan, Lorna McGhee, Alison Mitchell, Ruth Morley and Yvonne Paterson, also clarinettists John Cushing and Maximiliano Martin and saxophonist Simon Haram.
In competitions he has been awarded the Lisa Fuchsova Prize for outstanding chamber music pianist and the Eric Rice Memorial Prize for outstanding accompanist, both at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London.
Scott Mitchell is a Senior Staff Accompanist and lecturer in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow where he was recently made a Fellow and where he also teaches piano at the Junior Department. He is also a member of the accompaniment staff at Napier University in Edinburgh and also one of the founding members of the Cantilena Festival on Islay, a Festival for strings taking place on the island of Islay every summer.