BBC SSO: Tectonics Glasgow 2026

Tectonics Glasgow 2026

Presented by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Saturday 2nd May 2026

Sunday 3rd May 2026

• Weekend Festival Pass:  £34.50 / £28.50 concession (includes restoration fund)
• Saturday Pass £24.50 / £18.50 concession (includes restoration fund)
• Sunday Pass  £24.50 / £18.50 concession (includes restoration fund)

Workshop times 

Due to limited capacity, tickets will be first come, first served and must be reserved at the beginning of each day at City Halls Box Office. Performances last c.30 minutes.

Day 1 & 2 – Performances at 14.30, 18.30 and 19.00 

Day 2: SUNDAY 4 MAY 2025

14.00 Doors open

Performances at 14.30, 18.30 and 19.00

Recital Room

FRÉDÉRIC LE JUNTER 

French experimental instrument builder Frédéric Le Junter made a lasting impression at Tectonics Glasgow’s virtual festival in 2021. Now, he brings his “weird and wonderful musical contraptions” (The Scotsman) to the Recital Room. Ticket reservation is required on the day. 

15.30

Grand Hall

NICOLE MITCHELL & CRAIG TABORN

Longtime collaborators in the jazz and improvisational music scene, flutist Nicole Mitchell and pianist Craig Taborn first played together over 20 years ago when Taborn was part of Mitchell’s Sonic Projections ensemble. In 2024, after an inspired performance at a festival where the duo was invited to imagine a legendary but undocumented meeting of Cecil Taylor and Eric Dolphy, they decided to make the duo a regular part of their busy performance schedules. Inspired by the creative spirits of Taylor and Dolphy, the two composer-instrumentalists have created a collection of pieces for the duo that foster and ignite spontaneous musical dialogues and explorations in each performance. Their shared interest in electronic treatments and textures, along with their efforts to expand the possibilities of piano and flute performance, yields a broad, diverse sonic landscape rooted in an intimate musical setting.

16.30

Old Fruitmarket

SAINT ABDULLAH

Saint Abdullah is the moniker of Iranian-Canadian brothers Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani (b. Tehran, 1986, 1988), currently based between Tehran and London. Their practice is rooted in sonic storytelling that seamlessly blends geo-politics, religion, and social behaviour. The brothers have developed a sophisticated studio practice exploring improvisation, electronics, plunderphonics, and sampling. Their music has been described as at once Western and Eastern, while belonging to no one and everyone—“an articulation of a perspective, emotion, and dialogue using sound as its foundation”, in their own words. Over the past eight years, Saint Abdullah has collaborated with acclaimed artists including Jason Nazary, Eomac, Abbas Zahedi and Armand Hammer (ELUCID, Billy Woods).

17.30

OLD FRUITMARKET

GBSR DUO

Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day

BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show presenter Kate Molleson describes Oliver Leith’s 2018 composition as “deadpan, subversive, quietly anarchic, disarmingly heart-sore and sweet-sour,” music that makes “masterful use of space, placement, sparse forces and really deft repetition.” Leith calls it a tender look at the simultaneously debilitating and beautiful irrationalities of our everyday lives; how our obsessions and compulsions surface and the rituals, superstitions and routines we all play out to appease our minds… and how that never really works. Created in collaboration with the GBSR Duo (percussionist George Barton and pianist Siwan Rhys, recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2025), the work offers disarming reflections on performance, relationships, codependency and mental health, staged within an instrument-strewn setting inspired by the duo’s own flat.

19.00-19.30

 Scottish Music Centre

MEET THE ARTISTS – DAY 2

Your chance to meet and hear about some of the artists and music performed in Day 2 of Tectonics, hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenter and writer Kate Molleson.

20.00

Main Hall

BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2

Naomi Pinnock I put lines down and wipe them away (UK Premiere)

Martin Smolka Until time takes back its gift (7 pieces for orchestra)

(World Premiere, BBC Commission)

Interval

Nicole Mitchell Clues from the Rippling of Space-Time* (World Premiere, BBC Commission)

Nicole Mitchell flute

Craig Taborn piano and electronics

Ilan Volkov conductor

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

In the process of composing, Naomi Pinnock tapes a collection of images, quotes and words to the wall behind her desk, describing them as “guideposts… stones to touch for the sometimes blind journey of making.” The work’s title is a quote by Amy Sillman, whose paintings unfold in layers with possibly dozens of other potential paintings beneath the surface—paths not taken, layers covered, a visceral searching for emergent shapes.

Martin Smolka also finds inspiration in the drawings, quotes and notes kept on his desk. He writes, “I weave various pieces of paper between the strings of the talking drum,” a wooden hourglass-shaped African instrument. Among them is the ancient Seikilos Song: “As long as you're alive, shine, don't be sad at all; life is short, time asks for its due.” Guided by these words and “without censorship by my compositional intellect”, Smolka played freely at his piano, imagining meadows, streams, birds, trees and clouds, gradually shaping what endured into delicate, mostly quiet orchestral sounds.

The BBC commission and world premiere that ends this concert is written by Nicole Mitchell, a creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator. Founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Ice Crystal and Sonic Projections, Mitchell’s music celebrates African American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new ideas with moments in the legacy of jazz, gospel, experimentalism, pop and African percussion.