{"id":963377,"date":"2026-05-16T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T08:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:00:14","slug":"hands-across-the-north-sea-edinburgh-music-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963377\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands Across the North Sea\u00a0 \u2014 Edinburgh Music Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen\u2019s Hall, 22\/4\/2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Royal Concert Band Phileutonia, conductor Dirk van de Weijer, \u00a0<\/p>\n

Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band, Pipe Major Calum Watson and Drum Major Kerr McQuillan\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Queen\u2019s Hall played host on 22nd April to a unique and innovative collaboration between the Royal Concert Band Phileutonia, a Dutch symphonic wind orchestra, and the Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band. The Phileutonia were visiting from Helmond in the Netherlands, on the occasion of their 175th anniversary, to enjoy cultural tours provided by the Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association and to collaborate in a concert with the Pipe Band. With only a brief rehearsal on the morning of the concert, the musical craftsmanship of the two bands was on full display.The Phileutonia, under their conductor Dirk van de Weijer, opened the concert with a selection of pieces written especially or arranged for wind bands. They tackled an impressive range of genres such as \u2018Vesuvius\u2019, composed in 1999 by Frank Ticheli, which captured the threatening and explosive power of the eruption in 79AD. This was followed by the cozy final movement of Symphony no. 1 \u2018Lord of the Rings\u2019 by Dutch composer Johan de Meij, which sets the Hobbits back in the Shire after their adventures. The principal clarinetist, Saskia Martens, gave a moving rendition of the opening solo of Piazzola\u2019s \u2018Oblivion\u2019, usually performed on bandoneon. This part of the concert closed with \u2018Gaelforce\u2019 composed in 2001 by Scottish composer, Peter Graham.The Phileutonia then left the stage to allow room for the Boghall and Bathgate Pipe Band to stride on. I\u2019ve heard many pipe bands as they marched past in a procession or played from a distant field but this was the first time I encountered them up close and personal in the intimate space of the Queen\u2019s Hall. At volume, it was a visceral experience \u2013 felt rather than heard \u2013 from the thrilling and threatening sound of snare drums in perfect unison to the roar of the pipes. At such close quarters it is possible to appreciate the skill of the players as they navigate the intricate polyrhythms of the music with precision, concentrating closely on Pipe Major Calum Watson and Drum Major Kerr McQuillan.The drum sections of both bands then came together with more precision playing, showing how different types of instruments tackled similar rhythms. Finally, the wind sections of both bands joined the drummers to play \u2018Highland Cathedral\u2019 and \u2018Amazing Grace\u2019. There was a little wobble at the beginning of the first piece, where the pipers and the Phileutonia were slightly out of synch but this only served to highlight how challenging this musical collaboration had been and how successfully it was achieved.\u00a0 At the close the Chairman of the Phileutonia, Wim van der Linden, made a moving speech thanking the musicians for their commitment to friendship and cultural exchange in a collaboration between two very different musical languages, each rooted in generations of musicians who believe that music is a shared civic art.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Fiona Watt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen\u2019s Hall, 22\/4\/2026\u00a0 Royal Concert Band Phileutonia, conductor Dirk van de Weijer, \u00a0 Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-963377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}