A GROUP of HND Music students and staff from Stevenson College Edinburgh will perform on 27 March at the Birštonas Jazz Festival in Lithuania with the performance also being televised live to over 15 million viewers.
The production brings together professional music and theatre with an elaborate set and explores Lithuanian’s impression of Scotland.
The original compositions will be a mixture of traditional and contemporary music and is the result of collaboration between Stevenson and Volanas College, the largest in Lithuania.
Ken Thomson, Stevenson College’s head of Music and Drama, said: “We are very honoured to be performing live at such a prestigious event. The students have worked hard preparing for this event and I’m very proud of what they have achieved so far. From 14th of March they will be rehearsing in Vilnius, up to six hours per day, with professional musicians and musical theatre artists. This is a great experience for our students and one they will never forget.”
The group of 14 students and two members of staff include two singers, three fiddlers, two sax players, two whistles and performers of the acoustic guitar, drums, bass and trumpet. They will wear tartan costumes and perform on an elaborate stage to a live audience of thousands of people.
Back in the Soviet times, Lithuania was regarded as the jazziest republic of the USSR. Since then, it has improved its jazz traditions even more and has remained the country where jazz music occupies a substantial niche in its overall cultural life.
The small town of Birštonas in the south-western part of Lithuania is an important landmark on the map of the cultural activity of the country. The Birštonas Jazz Festival is where many jazz musicians and jazz lovers from around the country and the world will be going to spend the last weekend in March.
Notes to Editors
- For the first time in September 2010, Stevenson College Edinburgh is planning to introduce a new BA (Hons) degree in Music Performance (subject to approval by Abertay University, Dundee) with a duration of one year for ordinary degree and two years for the honours degree.
- Stevenson College Edinburgh celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2010. When the College opened in 1970 at the Sighthill Campus it had 3,000 students. Today, it is one of the largest colleges in Scotland with over 18,000 students, of which nearly 3,500 are full-time (2008/09 academic year) and over are 1,000 EU and international students.
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Contact: Ann Robb
Phone: 07552 167422
Email: ann@marketing-works.co.uk
Website: http://www.stevenson.ac.uk
