Joe Stollery

Open…

Katherine Wren and Pete Stollery 

Deer Tracks

Joe Stollery 

Grain

Pete Stollery 

The New Forest

Charles Ross 

The New Bridge - Frozen Solitude

Katherine Wren and Pete & Joe Stollery 

The Old Bridge - Muckle Spate

Katherine Wren and Pete Stollery 

Alluvial Fan - Dissipation - The Birds Return

Katherine Wren and Joe Stollery 

Bonnie Glen Quoich

Paul Anderson

arr. Katherine Wren and Pete Stollery 

…close.

Pete Stollery

On A Wing and A Prayer – Deeside is the second in Nordic Viola’s series of performances exploring ecological change as the world undergoes climate change. Devised by violist Katherine Wren, it is in three parts, the first part having taken place in Shetland with percussionist/composer Renzo Spiteri and the third in Western Scotland with composer Lisa Robertson. For this second iteration of the series, Katherine chose to work with me and my father Pete Stollery. The majority of the performance comprises a collaboration between the three of us along with music by Charles Ross and Paul Anderson.

Katherine Wren writes, “Each stage of the project takes place in an area that means a lot to me personally but, more importantly, I want to work with composers who live in those areas and to talk to people living and working in the project area. Pete and Joe have lived in Aberdeenshire for many years. After discussing many possible sites for our research, we decided to base ourselves in Braemar in January2024 and to explore how Glen Quoich and the Upper Dee catchment had changed in the aftermath of Storm Frank in 2015, the first year in which storms were named in the UK. By some strange coincidence, the winter of 2024 saw the greatest number of named storms since that wild winter of 2015. Ironically, we were treated to some very still, snowy weather during our residency, though the river went into spate soon after we left. Or maybe it wasn’t so ironic, as we were also very interested in exploring how nature has recovered since Storm Frank with an increase in wading birds and also in how the woodlands are regenerating on the Mar Lodge Estate.”

Deer Tracks is a dramatic soliloquy in variation form, originally composed for Katherine Wren in March 2022. The context behind the piece was the idea of finding deer’s hoof prints on the ground of a forest. I have often caught brief glimpses of these animals, who often start shying away in graceful movements when I approach them. To capture this, the piece, starting off in relative mystical stillness, develops in dance-like variations of rising pitch and ever-increasing rhythm, travelling through the various gaits of the deer, from steady walking to a bouncing canter, climaxing in a frantic sprint with various tumbles, before being cut off back to the initial slowness (as the poor animal is presumably caught by an adversary). The ultimate impression I wanted to get in this piece was to imagine this deer on a fantastical plane, as one observes its prints and imagines how it moved from that spot to virtually retell its story, before the prints dissipate as dust in the closing bars of the piece.

For Alluvial Fan - Dissipation - The Birds Return, I transcribed the calls of some wading birds to give the impression of wildlife coming back to Glen Quoich in the wake of the Muckle Spate. Shaila Rao at Mar Lodge provided us with a list of suggested birds, and after listening to online recordings of them, I made some improvisational sketches for viola, each of which exploits the various characteristics of every call and making use of the instruments diverse range of techniques.

Nordic Viola Podcast about the project

The Scotsman article - 6 March 2024

PERFORMANCES:

Première: 14 March 2024 - The Barn, Banchory - Katherine Wren (viola), Pete Stollery (sound projection)

8 February 2025 - Pathfoot Building, Stirling - Katherine Wren (viola), Pete Stollery (sound projection)

RECORDINGS:

On a Wing and a Prayer - Deeside - Nordic Viola (2025)