High Heels and Horse Hair

String Duo High Heels and Horse Hair galloped onto Scotland’s chamber music scene in 2010 and will be galloping to Arran on Saturday 21st November 2015! Their fresh, dynamic playing and engaging style has delighted audiences across the country and earned them the Enterprise Music Scotland Residency Award for 2013-2015. Their Edinburgh Fringe show Alba to Oz was appraised ‘Exquisite fusion music from a loveable quirky high-heeled duo’.

“Two lands, roughly 17,000km apart from one another, unite like brothers separated at birth – Scottish Baroque and Australian indigenous music interact in an increasingly natural and palpable harmony. This is, of course, Sonia Cromarty’s and Alice Rickards’ intention, but it’s still extraordinary that it works.” (‘Three weeks’, Edinburgh festival Fringe)

Alice Rickards is the only antipodean member of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She was raised on a small cattle farm near Armidale, northern New South Wales. Before moving to the UK in 2003 Alice completed her undergraduate performance degree at the Queensland Conservatorium in Australia. She then gained her Masters with Distinction at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Alice has had a varied career in chamber music, from winning QLD Arts Councils Gertrude Langer Chamber Music Prize to performing Australian repertoire and new commissions at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She loves the sound of gut strings and has performed with early music ensembles including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Dunedin Consort. Alice enjoys living in Scotland, for the space and the adventurous lifestyle it affords.

Aberdeen-born Sonia Cromarty studied cello and baroque cello at the RSAMD gaining a First Class Honours degree and Post-graduate Diploma with Distinction. During her college years she won numerous prizes for solo and ensemble playing including the prestigious Peter Morrison Award for all round excellence. Since graduating she has enjoyed a busy and varied freelance career that has taken her around the world from South America to the Arctic. She has worked with Scotland’s leading orchestras and ensembles and performs and tours regularly with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. As a chamber player Sonia is also a member of Daniel’s Beard, the Amici Cello Trio, Beinn Artair Piano Trio and the Rhona Mackay Trio. Off stage, she enjoys teaching, bringing music to the wider community through education projects and introducing the world to her young daughter Nara.

The concert begins at 7.30, and tickets are available on the door or at Inspirations of Arran in Brodick.