Folk, Jazz etc.: McFall's is going loopy with busy Four Corners schedule By JIM GILCHRIST Published on Thursday 10 May 2012 00:00 NEVER a dull moment, it seems, when you play in Mr McFall's Chamber, the wilfully eclectic ensemble, its core drawn from the ranks of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, who can be found performing everything from James MacMillan to Astor Piazzolla, King Crimson to Looney Tunes cartoon scores. Robert McFall, the group's eponymous second violinist, is speaking to me about his outfit's forthcoming Four Corners tour. He apologises for his lateness: he and McFall's cellist Su-a Lee have spent the previous two hours trying to get their heads - or should that be their feet? - round loop pedals, these electronic gadgets which enable real-time sampling and layering of sounds to provide accompaniment or other effects. The electronics were for a piece by composer Amble Skuse, which McFall's, with other musicians, premiered last Saturday in Stirling's Tolbooth Arts Centre, one of several new compositions showcased that night under the auspices of the creative development initiative Distil, for which McFall's Chamber was the "house band." Tonight McFall, along with Su-a, the Chamber's viola player Brian Schiele and its current lead violinist Rosenna East, will be back within the ranks of the SCO performing Beethoven's mighty Ninth Symphony at the Usher Hall. "After this loop-pedalling, I'm sure it will seem terribly easy," laughs McFall. Then, on Sunday, back in Mr McFall's Chamber mode, they hit the road with their Four Corners project. Four Corners is a collaboration with four leading contemporary folk performers - fiddler Aidan O'Rourke, piper-saxophonist Fraser Fifield, harpist Corrina Hewat and pianist James Ross - each of whom has composed a piece evoking their particular airt of northern Scotland. All four are musicians with whom McFall's have collaborated in the past, sometimes through earlier Distil projects. "It was nice to be able to commission these pieces," says McFall, "because they were from people whose music we know works really well for us." Fiddler Aidan O'Rourke, from Oban, has written a piece - described by McFall as "punchy and contrapuntal" - inspired by ships" horns in his hometown's harbour, while the Wick-born pianist James Ross (on whose recent album, Chasing the Sun, McFall's provide strings) evokes the expansive Flow Country of his native Caithness. From Aberdeenshire, Fraser Fifield is another established collaborator with the ensemble, having recorded Birds & Beasts (celebrating the music of the late Martyn Bennett) with them two years ago and also joined them in the chamber opera The Okavango Macbeth, by Tom Cunningham and Alexander McCall Smith. In his contribution to Four Corners, Fifield uses both the "heterophonic" strains of Gaelic psalm-singing and modern grooves, while harpist Corrina Hewat's piece evokes the varying characters of the coastal villages around her native Black Isle. McFall's and soloists will bring the Four Corners project to Edinburgh's Queen's Hall in August. In the meantime, the ensemble pursues a busy and characteristically eclectic schedule, including a performance of Gavin Bryars's Eight Irish Madrigals and other new works, with soprano Susan Hamilton and tenor Nicholas Mulroy, in Dalmeny Kirk on 20 May. Later in the summer they tackle a programme of contemporary music from the Baltic countries, and are also providing an ongoing tango-based educational project for north Ayrshire schools. Apart from Birds & Beasts with Fifield, recordings over the past couple of years have also included the above-mentioned Bryars madrigals and a live recording with Dundee songwriter Michael Marra. Then there's that day job with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It keeps you fresh, McFall agrees. One of the nice things about the SCO is that it does have a lot of people going off and doing other things. Then it's back to those loop pedals. McFall's Chamber play Lyth Arts Centre on 13 May, Glenurquhart Public Hall, Drumnadrochit, on 15 May and Dornie Hall, Lochan, on 16 May, before heading south to Peebles and Dumfries. For full details, see www.mcfalls.co.uk