Tectonics is a Music Festival curated by Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, proudly presented by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It takes place at City Halls, Glasgow, 7-8 May.

We’re delighted to bring together once again a wide range of artists from various musical disciplines to City Halls and the Old Fruitmarket for a weekend where anything can – and probably will – happen.

This year sees the Recital Room flooded in the sound of the Housatonic River courtesy of Annea Lockwood whose affinity with the natural world has permeated her installations and compositions for decades, as you’ll also hear in her work Jitterbug.

The great John Tilbury comes to the festival celebrating his 80th year to play the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto by Howard Skempton and a new work by Michael Pisaro, whose Lucretius Melody will also feature in the festival, the latest work in a series inspired by the Roman poet. As in previous years, composers have responded to the performance spaces at City Halls, with Catherine Kontz’s new work conjuring up the sounds of market traders while Alvin Curran will use all the spaces at City Halls for his new piece.

There are also World Premieres from Laurence Crane, Richard Emsley and Eyvind Kang while Wolf Eyes-founder Nate Young writes his first work for orchestra. String instruments are the focus of David Fennessey’s work for 16 players and Jon Rose continues his restlessinvestigations into the possibilities of the violin.

Spoken word, poetry and vocal expression are strongly represented this year with solo performances from Alwynne Pritchard and yoiker Ánde Somby, plus the poetry and viola of Ivor Kallin entwined with a deconstruction of Alasdair Roberts’ songs and guitar and Alex Nielson’s percussion. There’s also the first appearance of opera in the festival with Jane Dickson’s work Labyrinthine and Áfall / Trauma a new work by Moss Moss Not Moss aka poet and composer Angela Rawlings with Wyrd Folk exponent Rebecca Bruton. This year’s late night gig features Andy Moor of the The Ex teaming up with regular contributors and local guitarists, brothers Oliver and Laurie Pitt and the homemade electronic instruments of Phantom Chips.

From orchestral composition to improvisation, from the most delicate of acoustic whispers to the wilder shores of amplified discord: Tectonics Glasgow continues to bring together local artists and those from around the globe to explore how sound, in all its guises, has the power to move us.

Keep making noise…

Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell curators