The 25th March sees the release of Stuart MacRae’s new portrait album on Delphian Records, performed by close collaborators Hebrides Ensemble. The album spans 25 years of chamber works by MacRae, and includes a specially-commissioned new piece, Ursa Minor. It also includes I am Prometheus, written for the Hebrides Ensemble and tenor Joshua Ellicott during MacRae’s time as Composer-in-Association at the Lammermuir Festival.
“Reflecting diverse inspirations from nature and myth, the disc also reveals underlying continuities: a preoccupation, in particular, with questions of scale and perspective. The ancient Greek hero Prometheus receives an unexpectedly intimate portrait, his human aspects to the fore – flawed yet sympathetic. MacRae’s perception of the natural world, meanwhile, extends from the microscopic scale of lichen to the vastness of the night sky, in which the medium of distance transmutes all turmoil into calm.”
Recent works include the premiere of ‘Macbeth’ Sonata for guitar, commissioned and performed by Sasha Savaloni for Park Lane Group. A soprano version of Earth ever green the ways was premiered by Stephanie Lamprea in recitals across the UK in March 2022. MacRae's music has been recorded for NMC, Black Box, Kairos and the London Sinfonietta’s own label. Delphian previously released the world premiere recording of his Piano Sonata, performed by Simon Smith, and two choral works performed by the Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. The 25th March 2022 also sees the release of Fenella Humphreys’ album Caprices on Rubicon Classics, which includes MacRae’s Variation on Caprice 24, which she performed approximately 165 times in a 4.5 hour livestreamed performance in November 2020.
More information on 'Ursa Minor' can be found here. Watch a video of the Hebrides Ensemble performing the title track here.
