Argyll and Bute Concert Tours commissions composer to create the Argyll Suite

Here’s a first of some moment. The 2010-2011 season of chamber music concerts given by touring musicians in a programme organised by Argyll and Bute Concert Tours (ABCT) will feature a world premiere of the specially commissioned Argyll Suite,

The piece has been commissioned from Berwick-based Oliver Searle for the Scottish Reed Trio, who will play it in their March 2011 tour at each of the six Argyll venues affiliated to the ABCT.

In the traditional touring sequence, they will perform it first in Rothesay in Bute – which will be the actual World Premiere – and then progressively each night in the other five  venues across Argyll.

The Scottish Reed Trio was formed three years ago, with Catherine Earnshaw on oboe, Frances Pybus on clarinet and Heather Kent on bassoon.

The Argyll Suite, as it will be known, is to feature six movements, with each one named for and responding to the nature of one of the six areas in Argyll represented by the partners in Argyll and Bute Concert Tours. These are: Oban, Mid Argyll, Kintyre, Islay, Cowal and Bute.

The concert in which the second performance of the Argyll Sute will be performed is at the headquarters of Argyll and But Council at Kilmory in Lochgilphead, bringing the Argyll Suite to the corporate heart of Argyll and Bute.

This is a hugely imaginative gesture by Argyll and Bute Concert Tours, with tribute due to the initiative of John Holt of the Mid Argyll Arts Association and himself a musician of note.