Following the pandemic, Scottish Opera have introduced a pop-up music show. This opera is the story of the River Clyde submitted to the audience in socially distanced performances. Songs and stories tell of the generations of workers and their families who lived and laboured along the riverbank. From its source in the South Lanarkshire hills down to Glasgow and on to the “tail of the bank” near Greenock is over a hundred miles.
Karen MacIver, the composer, and lecturer, for piano improvisation for dance, at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, explained how a pop-up trailer was being taken out on the road. She took inspiration for the show from the bustling heyday of the Clyde’s shipbuilding past. It was said that over a fifth of all shipping afloat on the world’s oceans in 1900 had been constructed on the banks of the River Clyde. Karen explores the origins of the Sugar Refinery in Greenock and its ties with the Caribbean. She hopes that the pop-up tour will help take a step forward towards a more normal way of viewing live performances. It will be very unusual for the opera singers this time says Karen as they normally never use amplified assistance. This should be a unique performance she states. Last year Karen was lauded for the clever arrangement she designed for the spectacle “Amadeas Bard”. This was a combination she organised of music by Wolfgang Amadeas Mozart and our own Robert Burns.
Karen (Pictured) is a Scottish Artist working in just about every genre of music. Big things for me are Dance, Film, Theatre. I teach improvisation for Moving Image and travel the world playing and lecturing on my book: The Art of Class.