The Inverurie Music workshop programme has become an important part of our season and it has been wonderful to see how local players have enjoyed these events in previous years. Look here to see a summary of last season’s events and here for a view of the first workshop held in November 2023. Scroll down to find information about our plans for the rest of the season.

To book a place for any of these events, email inveruriemusic@gmail.com giving your name, address, phone number, instrument, and the event you would like to join.

String Ensemble Day with Aaron McGregor
Kemnay Church Centre, Church Lane, Kemnay

Saturday 17 February 2024

This event is for local musicians who come together for the day with Aaron to be tutored on works for small string orchestra. There are around 20 places available for string players. Music is available in advance to allow for some preparation.

Cost: £25 standard price or £15 for for those in full-time education, and for those on disability or low-income benefits.

Find out more here.

Dr Aaron McGregor is a freelance violinist and Lecturer in Music (Performance) at the University of Aberdeen. Aaron’s performance background ranges across a spectrum of styles, including modern and baroque violin, and Scottish traditional fiddle. He has performed with ensembles such as the Dunedin Consort, Ludus Baroque, Oxford Baroque, Ex Cathedra, RSNO, Scottish Ensemble, Scottish Ballet and Manchester Camerata. Aaron is a leading exponent of 17th and 18th-century Scottish fiddle music, performing regularly with Concerto Caledonia. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Aaron completed an MMus in Historically Informed Performance Practice with distinction at the University of Glasgow and the RCS in 2014. He led the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, NYOS strings, the Edinburgh University orchestras and performed concertos including Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens, and Bach with the Edinburgh University orchestras. In January 2020, he completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow, his research focussing on the early history of the violin in Scotland.

Masterclasses/Workshops

These events provide local musicians with a great opportunity to work with professional artists performing in the Inverurie Music concert series.

Saturday 23 March 2024 with Madeleine Mitchell (violin) and Nigel Clayton (piano)
King’s Pavilion, King’s College Campus, Aberdeen

Morning session (10.00 – 12.00): Violin and Piano – individual tuition (each session lasts 45 minutes). Two violin and two piano sessions are available. Bring your own music to work on (sending details in advance to Inverurie Music).

Cost: £35 per person or £25 if in full-time education, or receiving disability or low income benefits

Afternoon session (12.30 – 15.30): Chamber music group tuition with groups which are formed depending on the participants joining the session. If already playing in a chamber group, you are welcome to join as a group. If the group is not already formed, Madeleine and Nigel will select pieces to work on and will send scores in advance.

Cost: £25 standard price and £15 for for those in full-time education, and for those on disability or low-income benefits.

Madeleine Mitchell has been described by The Times as ‘one of Britain’s liveliest musical forces (and) foremost violinists’. Her performances in some 50 countries as soloist and chamber musician in a wide repertoire are frequently broadcast for television and radio including the BBC Proms, ABC (Australia), Bayerischer Rundfunk, S4C and Italian TV when she won the Palma d’Oro, praised both for her vibrant lyrical intensity and pioneering creativity. She won a Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Award in 2022 for her creative project linking art and music in film. Madeleine is a Professor at the Royal College of Music, London. Nigel Clayton studied at the Royal College of Music, London, where he won prizes in every category of piano performance and was awarded the College’s yearly prize for his Bachelor of Music Degree. He has toured worldwide and throughout the UK. Nigel is Professor of piano at the Royal College of Music, London and visiting Professor of piano at the North East of Scotland Music School.

Sunday 26 May 2024 – Robert Rice (baritone) and William Vann (piano)
MacRobert Building, University of Aberdeen, King Street, Aberdeen

***Please note that this event replaces the one previously advertised***

Morning session (10.00 – 12.00): Voice and Piano – individual tuition (each session lasts 45 minutes). There are four sessions available, two for vocalists and and two for pianists. Bring your own music to work on (sending details in advance to Inverurie Music).

Cost: £35 per person or £25 if in full-time education, or receiving disability or low income benefits.

Afternoon session (13.00 – 16.30): Choir – Robert and William will choose a choral piece to work on, with piano accompaniment (the score will be sent out in advance). All singers are welcome to participate.

Cost: £25 standard price or £15 for for those in full-time education, and for those on disability or low-income benefits.

One of the UK’s most versatile baritones, Robert Rice was a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge before gaining a DipRAM under Mark Wildman. His concert repertoire is extensive and varied: drawing on his experience in vocal consorts, he is often praised for his interpretations of the baroque masterworks; as a mature singer he equally enjoys Verdi, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. In recent seasons he has performed composers as varied as Humperdinck, at the Berlin Konzerthaus, Bach – St John Passion at the Southern Cathedrals Festival – and Howard Goodall at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. His main specialism is in works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and he has been involved in premières of diverse new pieces throughout his career, those by Jacques Cohen, Paul Drayton, Errolyn Wallen and Hayley Jenkins being notable recent examples. His experience in performing contemporary music led to the creation of roles in stage works by Paul Clark, Judith Bingham and Nigel Osborne. He made his debut at London’s South Bank in a staging of Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King. Robert appeared in the staged recital Art Sung: Alma Mahler (Wilton’s Music Hall), and with pianist William Vann has regularly performed at York’s Late Music series, most recently celebrating Walter De la Mare with several premières, (also featuring in tonight’s programme). He has collaborated with guitarist Erich Schachtner in Germany and the UK on programmes of lieder and lute songs.

A multiple-prize winning and critically acclaimed choral, orchestral and opera conductor and song accompanist, William Vann is equally at home on the podium or at the piano and is particularly renowned for his revival performances and recordings of lost and lesser-known works of vocal and choral music by British composers.

Born in Bedford, he was a Chorister at King’s College, Cambridge and a Music Scholar at Bedford School. He subsequently read law and took up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard, and studied piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone. He studies conducting with Martyn Brabbins and in 2024 he will take up the role of Chorus Master at The Grange Festival for productions of The Rake’s Progress and Tosca.

His prizes for piano accompaniment include the Wigmore Song Competition Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo (with Johnny Herford), the Gerald Moore award and the Royal Overseas League Accompanists’ Award. His extensive discography includes recordings for Albion, Champs Hill, Chandos, Delphian, Etcetera, Navona and SOMM with artists including Mary Bevan, Dame Sarah Connolly, Jack Liebeck, Nicky Spence, Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams, Britten Sinfonia and the London Mozart Players.

He is the Director of Music at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, an Associate of the RAM, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a Trustee of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, a Samling Artist, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Music Society, the Artistic Director of Bedford Music Club, a conductor and vocal coach at the Dartington and Oxenfoord International Summer Schools and the founder and Artistic Director of the London English Song Festival. www.williamvann.com