Tectonics Glasgow is a Music Festival curated by Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, proudly presented by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It takes place at City Halls, Glasgow, 5-6 May.

When we launched the first Tectonics festival in 2013 we were committed to bringing the best improvisers and new music practitioners from around the world to Glasgow, to collaborate together and with local performers and artists.

That ethos has never changed and this year we welcome performers and composers from Japan, Lithuania, France, Sweden, Norway and the USA as well as UK and Scottish-based artists. Tetsuya Umeda from Osaka has been investigating the musical possibilities of spaces for years and he brings his unique creativity to a performance in the Old Fruitmarket. 

Legendary ‘80s Japanese pop duo Syzygys headline Saturday night, while New York’s Miya Masaoka brings the traditional sounds of the Japanese koto into the 21st century with a major new work. She’ll also be collaborating with British sax virtuoso Tony Bevan, just one of several sax performers this year which include Mats Gustafsson, who will also create a new work for the Old Fruitmarket, and Dror Feiler. Feiler has written a new work for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, where he’ll be joined by Gustafsson and Lasse Marhaug, who also has a solo Sunday set. Local performers Acrid Lactations (Susan Fitzpatrick and Stuart Arnot) give a solo set on Sunday and join Joe Posset for his Grand Dictaphone Jaxx, while Tina Krekels brings the mating rituals of the anglerfi sh up from the deep for her new piece Pardon, I have tentacles. 

As well as Feiler’s new work, there are World Premieres for the BBC SSO from Naomi Pinnock, James Clarke, Evan Johnson, and Marc Sabat and a recent work by Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir. There’s also a focus on the French composer Pascale Criton, who brings a new piece to the festival along with her regular collaborators and performers Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker. For that work they are joined by one of the world’s leading exponents of the ondes Martenot, Nathalie Forget, who opens the festival with Bernard Parmegiani’s classic work Outremer. Crossing artforms has also been a component of this festival since its inception, and this year there will be four performances of The Burnt Room, which brings together dance and semi-improvised music, staged in the Recital Room. It’s been seen in Berlin and Tel Aviv and we’re thrilled to bring it to Glasgow.

Enjoy yourselves,

Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, curators