MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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BEN LUNN celebrates the beautiful and subversive music of Eddie McGuire
ON SONG: (L to R) On the picket line with fellow composers 1980, a strike to save the Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO); Eddie McGuire addresses the STUC
[edwardmcguire.com]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
YOU can learn a lot about a composer, and a person, simply from the place you first meet them. My first encounter with Eddie McGuire was at a meeting of Radical Options for Scotland and Europe in the Unite offices in Glasgow. Since then, to this day, most of my encounters with the composer have been at a protest or rally rather than in a concert hall.
Shortly after I moved to Scotland, after my years living in Vilnius, I attended a Morning Star event (although I can’t remember for the life of me which) where Keith Stoddart deployed his usual charm and curiosity and quickly discovered I was a composer. His instant response was: “In Scotland you only need to know two composers James MacMillan and Eddie McGuire.”
Two very telling signs about a composer who celebrates his 75th this year.
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