Sequoia is an award-winning string duo, dedicated to exploring the natural world through music.
Intimate performances showcase Scotland's music and its environment,
inspiring, informing and inviting connection.
What's new?
New Music Award
We are delighted to have won the New Music Programme category at the Scottish Awards for New Music 2023 for WATER MUSIC source to sea.
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The trophy, designed by artist Michelle Cranwell was "inspired by the idea that these incredible musicians hold the future of music and an abundance of inspiration in their hands."
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New Album
In 2021, Stuart MacRae heard a recorded performance by mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean of The Lif of this World, his 2008 setting of an anonymous Middle English lyric. Entranced by the way she shaped its phrases and ornamentation, he immediately began to conceive new works for her voice, solo or lightly accompanied, as well as to bring to completion several other works-in-progress.
This extraordinary flurry of activity – eight vocal works completed in less than two years – is captured here, and reveals the extent to whichMacRae’s recent music has expanded to embrace folk-like simplicity alongside the modernist techniques of his earlier work. Similar qualities are found in two works for the violin-and-cello duo Sequoia, while MacRae himself appears on harmonium and contributes electronics to two of the vocal solos.
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"striking...a wonderful journey"
Ben Lunn, Morning Star *****
"enchanting...gripping unpredictability"
Ken Walton, The Scotsman *****