Nevis Ensemble
Due to severe funding challenges, the Glasgow-based orchestra with a vision of 'music for everyone, everywhere', has had to cease operations
It is with the saddest of hearts that, effective Tuesday 24 January 2023, the Board of Trustees close the doors of Nevis Ensemble.
Since 2018, Nevis Ensemble has delivered almost seven hundred orchestral performances, as well as hundreds of workshops, and dozens of musician development sessions. Our vision of music for everyone, everywhere has seen Nevis Ensemble remove barriers to accessing orchestral music by bringing performances to the people, wherever they are. From swimming pools, schools, supermarkets and museums to a farm in the Scottish Borders and the summit of Ben Nevis in the Highlands – and everywhere in between, including the biggest ever tour by an orchestra of the Outer Hebrides – our approach to performing has seen us win at the Scottish Awards for New Music in 2019 and 2020, and be shortlisted for the Classical:NEXT Innovation Award in 2022.
Nevis Ensemble in action
In five short years, Nevis Ensemble has changed the narrative of what orchestras and classical music in general should be doing, in terms of inclusion, promoting new music, and sustainability. In 2021 we were awarded the ISM Award for New Music in Covid Times for our project Lochan Sketches, as well as the Environmental Sustainability Award at the Scottish Awards for New Music for our groundbreaking work with the Scottish Classical Sustainability Group.
In 2022, we established our base at the Platform arts centre at The Bridge in Easterhouse in the east end of Glasgow, UK, with our nineteen Fellows, and set about developing partnerships to ensure the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society could access the benefits of music, particularly in relation to health and wellbeing, social cohesion, and the simple but powerful feeling of joy.
As a small organisation with a big heart, we are proud to have had an audience of almost two hundred thousand people across Scotland, as well as more than one million online during lockdown, and changed the perceptions with musicians themselves on what they can do for our communities.
Sadly, this is where the Nevis Ensemble story ends. Following severe funding challenges, Nevis Ensemble is no longer able to deliver its activities.
The Board of Trustees would like to take this opportunity to thank the musicians and staff from over the years who have embraced the vision of Nevis Ensemble, and especially thank the many trusts, foundations, partners and individual donors who have made this journey possible.
Board of Trustees
Nevis Ensemble
Posted 25 January 2023 by Keith Bramich
