New Horsecross Arts season announced for Perth Theatre and Perth Concert Hall

Dec 18 2009 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

TOP Scottish Traditional big band The Treacherous Orchestra is tuning up to get 2010 off to a spectacular start at Perth’s annual Hogmanay bash in Perth Concert Hall.

The event also lifts off the new season at the award-winning Concert Hall and Perth Theatre.

The months of January through to the beginning of May are packed with music, drama, comedy, dance and community events, many unique to Perth.

For example, Samaagam in March is the culmination of the first community-based event run by Horsecross Arts as part of the Perth 800 celebrations. Legendary Indian classical musician Amjad Ali Khan joins the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, school pupils and community participants in Perth Concert Hall for this Home and Away event in honour of Indian and Western music.

Two colourful and unusual dance events are staged in the Concert Hall this winter. Fresh from its launch at the Edinburgh Hogmanay party, new dance and music extravaganza, Off Kilter, storms into the venue on January 21 and 22, and February 11-14 sees a Fair City first as the Concert Hall stage is transformed into a frozen wonderland for Snow White on Ice by the Russian Ice Stars.

Old friends returning to the Perth stage include pianist Alasdair Beatson who will be Artist in Residence in Perth Concert Hall throughout the spring performing solo and with his favourite chamber music partners. Llyr Williams takes on the challenge of performing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas over the course of the year, and there’s a huge ‘welcome back’ for world-renowned bass-baritone Willard White with his tribute to the legendary Paul Robeson in April.

And, once again, Scotland’s national orchestras and the Scottish Ensemble perform in a series of concerts.

Other musical highlights include British diva, Jane McDonald, as well as welcome re-appearances from Jethro Tull, Paul Carrack, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Barbara Dickson. Toyah Willcox returns as The Devil Queen in Vampires Rock, The Illegal Eagles re-create the Eagles’ classics, and Dancing Queens! Björn Again is back in February.

Four of Scotland’s finest fiddlers aka Fiddlers Bid are joined by Russian fiddling act Koshka in an electric Home and Away event in Perth Concert Hall in April, and the eclectic Monday Night Thing series of comedy and music resumes in Redrooms at Perth Theatre from February 15.

The Perth Theatre season continues with former Blake’s Seven star Gareth Thomas taking on the role of a brilliant yet unstable mathematician in a Horsecross production of David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Proof. Polly Teale’s stage adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre gets the Horsecross treatment in March with Ian Grieve directing, and stars from TV soaps appear in the stage version of the movie classic When Harry met Sally. Opera della Luna is back in April with a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.

Perth-bound top comedians playing sell-out shows are Rhod Gilbert, Dara O Briain and Frankie Boyle. Stephen K Amos, Russell Kane and Pam Ayres and a host of up and coming acts complete the new season’s laughter line-up.

Puppetry, snooker, chess displays, fashion shows, lectures, events, films, art exhibitions and community join-ins complete the new season.

Call Horsecross box office on 01738 621 031, or see www.horsecross.co.uk.