2023 Festival Show Reviews
We're grateful to reviewers from The Herald, The Scotsman, Voxcarnyx, Bachtrack, Opera Scotland, Edinburgh Music Review and others for reviewing this year's event. Enjoy a mix of the reviews here.
The Marian Consort - Thursday 18 May
Bachtrack by David Smythe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"In this very building in May 1559, John Knox preached his famous sermon against idolatry, after which the congregation stoned the priest, stripped the Kirk of ornament and went on the rampage. To hear this thrilling Renaissance music echoing round the ancient walls was a delightfully subversive twist, recognition of the heroic efforts to copy and preserve the sacred music. A terrific concert was rounded off by a spine-tingling encore of James MacMillan’s O Radiant Dawn."
https://bachtrack.com/22/
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra - Saturday 20 May
Bachtrack by David Smythe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Dvořák’s restless Symphony no. 7 in D minor was a true showcase for the Estonians, who gave a terrific performance. Elts conjured a world of darkness and light with big clear flowing gestures, the strings a united force of energy, lovely flute solos and the principal oboe playing straight out, trumpet-like, for the duration."
https://bachtrack.com/22/
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra - Saturday 20 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donal Hurley
"The almost entirely youthful Estonian orchestra delivered a performance that was as truly memorable as it was engaging. The appreciative Perth audience knew they had experienced something particularly special and their rapturous applause was rewarded with two encores."
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/pf-estonian-national-symphony-23
The Seal-Woman - Sunday 21 May
Opera Festival Scotland
"The solo voices were uniformly excellent. In the title role we had the superb mezzo Sioned Gwen Davies. She has worked with Scottish Opera for several years now, and has developed into a fine dramatic performer. The company's founder and director is the tenor David Douglas. He has had experience in the French baroque repertoire with Les Arts Florissants, as well as with this Scots Project, and his voice has the necessary lovely easy and sweet top. It is beautifully focused, so doeasn't need to be as powerful as some vices might be."
http://operascotland.org/tour/5261/Seal-Woman-2023
The Seal-Woman - Sunday 21 May
The Scotsman ⭐️⭐️⭐️ by Ken Walton
"It’s a curious beast, Kennedy-Fraser’s folklorish libretto essentially a string of songs in Gaelic, Scots and English sewn together with free-sung narrative and Bantock’s inoffensive, though not unattractive, music. A professional cast is augmented by enthusiastic community choir."
The Seal-Woman - Sunday 21 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donal Hurley
"This folk opera is a hidden gem, as is the production. The music is captivating and the pervasive Celtic twilight ambience is attractive, if that is your kind of thing – it most definitely is mine."
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/pf-scots-opera-project-seal-woman-23
The Ayoub Sisters - Monday 22 May
The Herald by Keith Bruce ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Although they never mention it themselves, these young women, with their open ears, sampling skills and pioneering music-making, are building bridges where any fool can see music can be at its most useful in our troubled world. In the process, they are also in danger of giving “classical crossover” a good name."
The Ayoub Sisters - Monday 22 May
Voxcarnyx by Keith Bruce ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"The corpses of young conservatoire-trained musicians that have been chewed up and spat out by the “classical crossover” genre litter the by-ways of the music marketplace. The Ayoub Sisters, you’d wager, are made of sterner stuff."
https://voxcarnyx.com/2023/05/23/perth-festival-the-ayoub-sisters/
The Ayoub Sisters - Monday 22 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donald Hurley
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/pf-ayoub-sisters-23
"The Ayoub Sisters are engaging, charming and skilful performers, draw on an apparently inexhaustible vein of cultural and artistic variety, are possessed of astounding technical ability, but, above all, display surpassing and radiant musicianship. Perth has taken them to its heart."
Red Priest - Wednesday 24 May
Garry Fraser
"And as for Piers Adams, everything he touched turned to gold, and I’ve yet to see a more vivacious, more exciting and more virtuosic exponent of the recorder through all its sizes from soprano to bass."
https://www.perthfestival.co.uk/Review-of-Red-Priest-by-Garry-Fraser
Red Priest - Wednesday 24 May
The Herald by Keith Bruce ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Red Priest - Wednesday 24 May
Voxcarnyx by Keith Bruce ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Red Priest were new to me, if not to Perth and St John’s, and this well-attended midweek hoolie had a feeling of joyful reunion."
https://voxcarnyx.com/2023/05/25/perth-festival-red-priest/
Sinatra: RAW - Wednesday 24 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donal Hurley
"Both musically and in terms of characterisation, this was a truly excellent, memorable and wholly enjoyable performance."
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/pf-sinatra-raw-23
Grappelli Night - Seonaid Aitken Quintet and The Curlew - Friday 26 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donal Hurley
"Seonaid introduced the band and, after a brief biographical note on the master’s early years, gave us a deliciously ornamented version of Fats Waller’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’. Next up and firmly in Hot Club territory, two Django Reinhardt numbers: a dreamy rhapsodic ‘Nuages’ with fab harmonies, segueing after an amazing cadenza into a superfast superheated ‘Daphne’ – quite excellent and a chance for Conor Smith to shine."
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/pf-grappelli-night-23
The World of the Gods - Saturday 27 May
Garry Fraser
"I wouldn’t take on the role of programming a festival for all the tea in China, or perhaps more fittingly, all the drums in Japan. The Perth Festival organisers do a brilliant job and while Saturday’s concert didn’t fit in with my requirements, this is out-weighed one hundred times over with what I have enjoyed over the past twenty years or more. Perth Festival of the Arts is not just for fuddy-duddies like me. It’s an all-embracing, all-cultured and all-appeasing blend which continues to work a certain magic."
The World of the Gods - Saturday 27 May
Edinburgh Music Review by Donal Hurley
"Finally, the God of Thunder and Lightning burst forth apocalyptically, with the Odaiko and brass at full tilt. A final duel of the two sets of drums drove to the big finish of the work and the evening’s top-notch entertainment."
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/perth-festival-world-of-the-gods