Black Glass Ensemble Edinburgh The Black Glass Ensemble reveals new music for the anthropocene in the margins of classical and experimental music. Combining the cream of Scotland’s chamber players with longstanding pioneers of the UK’s avant-garde electronic underground, the result of these liminal explorations is an emotionally resonant new music that challenges the senses, confounds expectations and breaks open new sonic ground. Black Glass was formed in 2018 by New Music Scotland award winner, and Queen’s Hall associate artist in residence, Michael Begg. The ensemble has been developed with support from Creative Scotland, HMUK and the Hope Scott Trust. Central to Black Glass’s vision is solastalgia, the term combining solace and pain, coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2005 to articulate the sense of existential distress caused by living through environmental change. In it’s innovative use of technology, and palette of bespoke software instruments, the ensemble creatively imbues their work with the mechanisms through which the knowledge of environmental decline comes to us; sonified data streams, satellite and weather monitoring systems; low frequency atmospheric receivers; field recordings; resonance audiograms, and more. The Black Glass Ensemble are: Michael Begg (scores, samples, data feeds, erosions); Ben Ponton (receivers, recordings, forensics); Clea Friend (cello); Aisling O’Dea (violin); Julia Lungu (violin); Neil Cuthbertson (trumpet); Jen Cuthbertson (French horn); Douglas Caskie (tuned and bespoke percussion). NOTES Michael Begg won the NMS Award in 2018 for his work, TITAN, a Cryptic commission for Sonica; Mexico’s CCD Radio named him “one of the most important experimental composers of our time” Ben Ponton is a founding member of Newcastle’s :zoviet*france: who the Ambient Music Guide refer to as “the ultimate cult electronic band” Aisling O’Dea is the principal violinist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Clea Friend is one of Scotland’s foremost cellists, and performs regularly with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal National Orchestra of Scotland ~ Banner photograph by Mike Wilkinson Profile Collage by 'the engineer' Black Glass Ensemble’s tracks Be Mine In Patience (Faith Section live) by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2022-02-25T16:09:01Z Arctic Night (Live InSpace 05 - Nov - 21) by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2022-02-25T16:02:59Z October, extended studio remix by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2022-02-25T15:59:13Z Be Mine in Patience: an Embrace in B minor by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2020-06-15T21:38:46Z B Minor :: patience by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2020-05-10T13:23:02Z The Alchemists. BBC R3 edit by Black Glass Ensemble published on 2020-02-17T14:12:19Z