The Edinburgh Quartet

The Edinburgh Quartet are playing Cowdray Hall at the Aberdeen Art Gallery on Thursday 29 October, as part of soundfestival 2026. They're one of Britain's leading string quartets, known for expressive depth and a certain intensity, and the afternoon centres on a world premiere.

That premiere is Ben Lunn's String Quartet No. 2, titled The Tyrant's Might is Passing. It's his second quartet, coming almost eight years after his first, and it took its title from a line by the Scottish socialist William Gallacher that Lunn felt was urgently relevant to today's political backdrop. He describes the piece as a meditation on defiance, deliberately spacious and around 25 minutes long. It follows his earlier quartets The Whispered, Yakka and Kiek Pasauliu.

Paired with it is Caroline Shaw's Entr'acte (2011), written for the Brentano String Quartet and inspired by a Haydn minuet. It riffs on the classical minuet-and-trio form with gestures that seem to have wandered into the wrong century. Together, the two pieces make up the full programme for the day.

The concert is part of soundfestival 2026, North East Scotland's celebration of new music, co-curated by composer and conductor Pete Stollery and run by Festival Director Fiona Robertson. The performance runs from 12.45pm to 1.30pm, with a pre-concert talk starting at 12.00pm if you want to hear more about the music before it begins. Tickets are pay what you can, handled by Aberdeen Box Office.