Bach Cello Suites at Christmas by Candlelight

Chloe Randall brings Bach's cello suites to Edinburgh New Town Church on Wednesday 2 December, with the whole thing played by candlelight. It's a solo cello recital, so it's just her and the instrument in the room, and the candlelight is the only lighting for the night.

Randall is playing three of Bach's Cello Suites: No. 1 in G major (BWV 1007), No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1008), and No. 3 in C major (BWV 1009). They're three of the most famous pieces ever written for solo cello, and hearing them one after another gives you a proper sense of how they work together. The first is the one most people recognise, the second is the darker, more brooding one, and the third brings it back up into a brighter key.

Randall herself is a Fife-born cellist who grew up in a musical family. She studied at the Junior Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before spending four years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where she picked up the Amy Lindley Cello Prize and the Shirley Cattarall Award for Cello and co-founded the duo Nexus Duo. In 2021 she moved on to the University of Music and the Arts in Vienna, studying under Bernhard Hedenborg and Florian Berner with support from the Scottish International Educational Trust. This is a local musician returning to the city with a programme she's spent years working through.

The concert is at Edinburgh New Town Church, 13 George Street, EH2 2PA, starting at 5:30 PM on Wednesday 2 December. Tickets run from £20 to £45.