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| Glasgow Cathedral Festival in 2022 |
Glasgow Cathedral, the city’s oldest building, is hosting the eighth Glasgow Cathedral Festival from 19 to 22 September 2024, featuring a diverse programme of live music, film, art, multi-media collaborations, talks and tours, all offering audiences the chance to reconsider, rediscover, reimagine, to expand their imaginations, explore beneath the surface and refresh their senses.
The first stone cathedral was dedicated in 1136, in the presence of King David I. Fragments of this building have been found beneath the structure of the present cathedral, which was dedicated in 1197, although much of the present cathedral dates from a major rebuilding in the 13th century. The cathedral is dedicated to Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, whose tomb lies at the centre of the building’s Lower Church, and following its foundation in 1451, the University of Glasgow held its first classes within the cathedral’s chapter house.
The festival opens with a recital from Scottish mezzo-soprano Rowan Hellier and pianist Jonathan Ware. She Represents sees fashion and song intersect; exploring the role of symbolism and sensuality in the modern female identity, Hellier and Ware perform music by French composer Rita Strohl (1865-1941), Francis Poulenc, Kurt Weill, Arnold Schoenberg, Mischa Spoliansky (including the wonderful Ich bin ein Vamp), and Cathy Berberian’s amazing Stripsody, with outfits created by designer Rebekka Dornhege Reyes.
Silent film has become a popular part of the festival’s programme and this year it is the American horror classic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920), with a live soundtrack from Odeon Leicester Square’s organist Donald MacKenzie.
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| Image by Kirsty Matheson |
The Hebrides Ensemble will be performing Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with soprano Stephanie Lamprea, alongside Helen Grime’s Pierrot Miniatures and the Scottish premiere of Brushstrokes of Nightmares and Dreams by Electra Perivolaris and an exhibition of new paintings by Kirsty Matheson, an artist in whose work music and art intertwine and who has done a sequence of 21 paintings for the 21 movements of Schoenberg’s work.
Fiddle/harp duo Twelfth Day will be presenting their unique blend of classical skill and folk roots in the cathedral’s cloister in an event aimed at families, whilst in the evening the crypt is the location for Twilight in the Crypt with saxophone improvisations from Scottish jazz legend Tommy Smith, and Octandre Ensemble making their Scottish debut with time-space-sound-light, a reflective sequence of music by Christian Mason.
The festival ends with another family-friendly lunchtime event: a recital from organist Katherine Dienes-Williams, Director of Music at Guildford Cathedral, whose programme evokes everything from Hollywood glamour to Scottish folk songs—with a sighting of some penguins along the way!
There are tours of the cathedral and wider Glasgow including the necropolis, and which links up with the museum of Glasgow Royal Infirmary across the precinct.
Full details from the festival’s website.
