Various - Beamish:The Singing

The works on this disc of music by Sally Beamish were composed between 2003 and 2012. As a whole the programme highlights the inspiration she has found in Scotland, her adopted homeland, and its landscape and history, while also reflecting her interest in jazz and Scottish traditional music. Its title, 'The Singing' is taken from the opening work, a concerto for accordion and orchestra, but it also symbolizes her interest in song, be it Gaelic chants (as in the concerto) or a Scottish lullaby (Under the Wing of the Rock), and the more abstract concept of translating words into music, as in her Trumpet Concerto, which takes Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities as its starting point.