From folk to house, Sean Shibe arrives down under
From traditional bagpipes to psychedelic house, Japanese-Scottish musician Sean Shibe channels it all through the strings of his guitar.
Shibe, 32, a professor at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, is often described as at the forefront of contemporary music – that’s when words like virtuosic and innovative are not being used instead.
On his first tour to Australia, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, he swaps from classical to electric guitar for a program titled Scotland Unbound inspired by the sounds and ideas of Shibe’s homeland.
He and the ACO kicked off in Wollongong on Thursday and will perform in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
The program is much more than the reels and jigs one might expect – for example, there’s the late Martyn Bennett’s Bothy Culture, inspired by Edinburgh’s nineties rave scene.
It’s a meeting of traditional Scottish music with electronic music and the title refers to highland bothys – basic shelters left open for anyone to use.
Then – and even Shibe admits this is “totally off the wall” – there’s Julia Wolfe’s Lad, which was originally written for nine bagpipes, arranged for electric guitar and strings.
“I was really keen on the piece but I didn’t really understand how I’d recreate it on the classic guitar, it was totally impossible,” Shibe said.
The answer was to switch to electric and deploy a hand-held electronic bow.
“It creates a highly distorted, wailing, ancient sound that the strings, given that they’re being picked up by microphones and amplified themselves, are totally able to emulate,” he said.
Also among the works premiering in Australia as part of the concert series is Chanter by Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, which was developed with Shibe contributing layers of vocalisation over bagpipes.
The composer asked him to sing while listening to a track so loud he could not hear his own voice, and this was looped and layered in a process so mesmerising it was almost sleep inducing – one verse is titled Sleep Chanting.
“I’m just delighted that what’s come together is so much more than just a bunch of arrangements of reels,” Shibe said.
“We’re really going beyond any one idea of Scotland to demonstrate the common wealth of the Celtic diaspora, the shared heritage we can celebrate.”
The ACO has just returned from a seven-concert US tour with its Four Seasons collaboration with oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros and percussionist James Tawadros.
Scotland Unbound is on tour till November 20.
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