Haddo Arts’ 10th Anniversary Commission – Chamber Quintet

James MacMillan is the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation. He first attracted attention with the acclaimed BBC Proms premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990). His percussion concerto Veni, Veni Emmanuel (1992) has received over 500 performances worldwide by orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and Cleveland Orchestra. Other major works include the cantata Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), Quickening (1998) for soloists, children’s choir, mixed choir and orchestra, the operas Inès de Castro (2001) and The Sacrifice (2005-06), St John Passion (2007), St Luke Passion (2013) and Symphony No.5: ‘Le grand Inconnu’ (2018).

He was featured composer at Edinburgh Festival (1993, 2019), Southbank Centre (1997), BBC’s Barbican Composer Weekend (2005) and Grafenegg Festival (2012). His interpreters include soloists Evelyn Glennie, Colin Currie, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Vadim Repin, conductors Leonard Slatkin, Sir Andrew Davis, Marin Alsop and Donald Runnicles, and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. His recordings can be found on BMG/RCA Red Seal, BIS, Chandos, Naxos, Hyperion, Coro, Linn and Challenge Classics.

Recent highlights include MacMillan’s Stabat Mater for The Sixteen streamed from the Sistine Chapel and premieres of a Trombone Concerto for Jörgen van Rijen, the armistice oratorio All the Hills and Vales Along, the 40-voice motet Vidi aquam, and Christmas Oratorio streamed in 2021 by NTR Dutch Radio from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The annual Cumnock Tryst festival was founded by the composer in 2014 in his childhood town in Scotland.

Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson works prolifically as soloist and chamber musician. Despite the shadow of Covid, Alasdair has kept busy during 2020/21, playing several times at Wigmore Hall, recording multiple concerts for BBC Radio 3 alongside Alina Ibragimova, Aleksei Kiseliov and the Nash Ensemble, and joining Royal Northern Sinfonia as concerto soloist. 

Alasdair is renowned as a sincere musician and intrepid programmer. He champions a wide repertoire with particular areas of interest: Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann; the solo and chamber music of Gabriel Fauré, Bartók and Janáçek; concertos of Bach, Bartók, Britten, Fauré, Hindemith, Messiaen and Mozart; and contemporary works, including the piano quintet of Thomas Adès, George Benjamin’s Shadowlines and Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks. Future plans include the first performances of a new piano concerto, written for him by Helena Winkelman. 

Two new recordings are released in Spring 2021: 3 Beethoven sonatas for violin and fortepiano with Viktoria Mullova on Onyx, and a solo piano recital Aus Wien on Pentatone. These join a discography of solo and chamber recordings on BIS, Champs Hill, Claves, Evil Penguin, Pentatone and SOMM labels. As chamber musician, Alasdair’s colleagues include Steven Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto, Viktoria Mullova, Pieter Wispelwey, the Doric, Gringolts and Meta4 string quartets, and the Nash Ensemble. 

Alasdair teaches solo piano at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and regularly mentors for the London-based Chamber Studio. From 2012 to 2018 Alasdair was founder and artistic director of Musique à Marsac, and since 2019 is co-artistic director of the Swiss chamber music festival at Ernen. 

1st Prizewinner and Audience Prizewinner at the 9th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in 2017, and hailed as “brilliantly fresh, unexpected and exhilarating” by The Scottish Herald, and “superb storytelling by four great communicators” by The Strad Magazine, the Maxwell Quartet is now firmly regarded as one of Britain’s finest string quartets,  with a strong connection to their folk music heritage and a commitment to bringing together wide-ranging projects and programmes to expand the string quartet repertoire.

After their success at Trondheim in 2017, the quartet’s 2017-18 season saw concert engagements across Europe, including performances in the Tivoli Concert Hall Series, the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, Stavanger Festival, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Schiermonnikoog and Wonderfeel Festivals in the Netherlands, Lammermuir Festival and Music at Paxton in Scotland, and more. Collaborations include working with the Danish String Quartet to perform Octets as well as collaborating on Scottish and Danish folk music, and working on a new commission for clarinet quintet with renowned composer/clarinettist Mark Simpson. The Quartet’s debut CD, featuring string quartets by Haydn alongside their own compositions based on Scottish traditional folk music, is due for release in early 2019 on Linn Records. 

The Quartet is formed of four close friends, who grew up playing folk and classical music together in youth orchestras and music schools across Scotland. The group officially began in 2010 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where its founding members met as postgraduate students. In 2011, the Maxwell Quartet was selected as the Royal Conservatoire’s Young Artists in Residence. The quartet was also named as Residency Artists for Enterprise Music Scotland 2011-2013, which saw several acclaimed concert tours over their two-year tenure. Performing widely across Scotland, the quartet has established a reputation for delighting audiences with their “unaffected enthusiasm” (North Highland Times) and their “panache and conviction” (Strathearn Herald). The quartet has held residencies at Oxford University, Perth Concert Hall and many chamber music festivals across the UK, including their own festival Loch Shiel in the west highlands of Scotland. 

Passionate about collaborating with musicians and other art forms, the quartet has worked with a global roster of artists and institutions including Cryptic Theatre, Wintour’s Leap, Royal Ballet School, Lunir, cinematographer Herman Kolgen and many more. The quartet has also worked with some of the UK’s most dynamic composers including commissions by Anna Meredith, Tom Harrold, Mark Simpson and Colin Broom. In addition to a busy concert diary, the quartet regularly feature in broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Scotland, as well as regularly giving schools workshops and concerts for children.

The Maxwell Quartet has studied with the Endellion Quartet (previous performers at Haddo Arts Festival) through a Chamber Studio mentorship programme at King’s Place, and privately with Hatto Beyerle, founding member of the Alban Berg Quartet and director of ECMA, in Hanover, Germany. Other mentors include Miguel da Silva (Quatuor Ysaye), Erich Hobarth (Quatuor Mosaiques), Krysztof Chorzelski (Belcea Quartet), Donald Grant (Elias) and Alasdair Tait.