Less than two weeks to go to Piping Live! and The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland are preparing to present their concert titled Emerging Composers: 20 Years Young in the City Halls on the first evening of the festival, Monday, August 8 at 7.30pm. Ten new pieces that have been created by the Emerging Composers project for the NYPBS will be showcased at the concert.
These new pieces will be presented by the NYPBS pipers and drummers alongside leading traditional musicians, making up a bespoke project band featuring the 10 young composers themselves.
Now in its second year, the NYPBS Emerging Composers project gave young composers the chance to write pipe band music for the concert stage, working on 2021’s theme of Scotland’s Stories and the 2022 theme of 20 Years Young, celebrating 20 years of NYPBS.
The 10 young composers are Breanna Wilson, Ellie McLaren, Kim MacLennan, Anna Scott and Ben Vardi from the 2021 project, and Siobhan Dyson, Lewis MacRae, Malin Lewis, James Bauld and Ben Muir from the 2022 intake.
Steven Blake, Director of NYPBS said: “We are very excited to be showcasing this brand new work at Piping Live! this year! We are so proud of the hard work our young composers have put into the project and very impressed with the output.
“This project is all about creating exciting repertoire from new perspectives for a pipe band. It’s given us a chance to invite new ideas from young musicians from backgrounds we may not see as often in the pipe band world and provides new challenges for our bands to work on. As a dedicated concert ensemble with artistic freedom beyond any competitive restraints, it’s our responsibility to explore new possibilities for pipe band concert repertoire and work out what the most effective way using our ensemble is in a concert hall setting.
“We are coming with a perspective of a pipe band being part of the wider traditional music scene and being less isolated. Our ambition with our concert projects, and our whole programme, is to hopefully bridge this gap.”
Tickets for the concert can be bought from the Piping Live! website here.
