Xenia Pestova Bennett - BAILE / home

Xenia Pestova Bennett brings BAILE / home to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on Tuesday 27 October, from 6pm to 7pm. The title comes from the Irish word for 'home', and that's exactly what the piece is about: personal histories of migration, memory and belonging, and the search for home that ties them together.

Bennett is a New Zealand pianist and composer, best known for her contemporary keyboard repertoire, and she wrote BAILE herself. The performance isn't a solo turn, though. She's joined on stage by five RCS Composition students, each of whom wrote a new work for the event. They drew on the various combinations of baroque and modern instruments available, so the night brings together a range of voices around the same central theme.

What you'll hear is a bit of a collision of worlds. Baroque instruments share the stage with a tiny toy piano, and the whole thing is enveloped in field recordings and spoken word. It's designed to create an intricate, private dream world of sounds—some old, some new, some humorous and some serious, reflective and progressive all at once. The mix of baroque and modern instruments, the toy piano, and the spoken word together give the piece its particular character.

It's a one-hour show, running from 6pm to 7pm at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 100 Renfrew Street in the city centre. Tickets are between £5 and £13.