The Ayoub Sisters & the BBC SSO, Celtic Connections Glasgow review: 'captivating'
The Ayoub Sisters’ new Arabic Symphony proved to be a joyful and thoroughly convincing creation, writes David Kettle
The Ayoub Sisters with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls, Glasgow *****
It was a Glasgow homecoming, a tenth-anniversary celebration, and the unveiling of a big, brand new symphony to boot. No wonder there was an air of celebration to the Scottish/Egyptian Ayoub Sisters’ Celtic Connections collaboration with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – as well as a winning sincerity to the sisters’ eagerness to share their Celtic/Arabic tunes with the packed-out audience.
There’s so much to admire about Sarah and Laura Ayoub – their rich, liquid playing and seemingly telepathic sense of ensemble, their perceptive blending of musical cultures, their colourful, vivid orchestrations, their disarmingly direct ways of speaking about their music. A first half mainly covering new orchestral arrangements of tracks from their Arabesque album put the BBCSSO players through their paces – especially the crisp, chattering percussion quintet across a whole gamut of Arabic drums. Conductor Nayer Nagui, jetted in specially from Cairo, was a brilliantly insightful, nimble presence, propelling the orchestral players ever forward.
But though the sisters were the focus in their opening numbers, it was their music alone that occupied the second half (as they slipped into audience seats) in the form of a kaleidoscopic Arabic Symphony, getting its very first performance.
It was a gamble, yes, from Celtic Connections in programming a big orchestral work, and from the sisters in taking a back seat for its performance. But it was a joyful, thoroughly convincing creation, journeying through Morocco, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in rhythms and colours persuasively corralled into a traditional four-movement symphonic form.
Okay, there might not have been much traditional development or thematic transformation, but the Arabic Symphony made up for it with its vivid storytelling, verve and colour. Conductor Nagui urged it onward, and the BBCSSO players gave it their all. Illuminating, captivating and, of course, deeply entertaining too.
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