It’s a case of how low can the Scottish Chamber Orchestra go, when they perform the world premiere of Haflidi Hallgrímsson’s Concerto Op 42 for Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra Sonnambulo.
The concerts take place in Glasgow City Halls on Friday May 8 and Edinburgh Queen’s Hall on Saturday May 9, performed by SCO Principal Bass, Nicholas Bayley.
Book-lovers could find themselves in for an unexpected treat, as two pairs of tickets to the concerts have also been placed in books that will be hidden in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as part of the SCO’s partnership in online project The Lost Book.
Hallgrímsson has had a close relationship with the orchestra for many years, and the new concerto has been dedicated to SCO double bassists Adrian Bornet - who suggested that Haflidi write such a work - and Nicholas Bayley.
The title Sonnambulo means sleepwalker, and Hallgrímsson’s writing takes the double bass soloist through a sequence of ‘dreamlike incidences’, although these are quite far removed from darkness and sleep.
Connected to these concerts and as part of The Lost Book project, the online animated whodunit for which SCO Education has been commissioning and performing soundtracks, the Orchestra will be hiding two novels in Edinburgh and Glasgow, each containing a pair tickets to the performances of Hallgrímsson’s new concerto.
Clues to the location of the books will be posted on www.thelostbook.net on Friday May 1 and amateur sleuths are encouraged to solve the clues to find the prize of the book and two free concert tickets.
Sonnambulo is a co-commission with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish Bass Trust, with funding from the Scottish Government, The Binks Trust, The Hope Scott Trust and PRS Foundation. Haflidi Hallgrímsson will be talking about his new work at pre-concert talks in both Glasgow and Edinburgh – free to ticket-holders.
