Tree Song by Graeme Stephen Concert 1 - with Juliette Lemoigne

Information

Tree Song is an 18-month creative project centred on composing, performing, and sharing new music in an open and collaborative way. Across six three-month cycles, composer and guitarist Graeme Stephen will create six new solo works for six distinctive musicians, each culminating in a premiere performance at the Pianodrome.

Concert 1

Juliette Lemoigne (Cello), Graeme Stephen (composer/Guitar), Fiona Winning (Viola), Elie Afif (Bass)

The first concert in the series features a work for solo cello exploring ideas of time and how we view memory, existence, life and death. This work is inspired by the T. S Elliot poem Four Quartets and the book Freedom from the Known by J. Krishnamurti. There will also be several duo pieces for Juliette on cello and the composer Graeme Stephen on guitar as well as music for a quartet featuring special guests viola player Fiona Winning of the London Philharmonic/London Sinfonietta Elie Afif (Lebanon) on Bass.
Supported by Creative Scotland.

Alongside the concerts, audiences are invited into the full creative process through rehearsal footage, interviews, composer diaries, open rehearsals, and recordings.

Tree Song is about building musical community, connecting composers, performers, and listeners through curiosity, openness, and shared experience. The project takes its name from ideas of growth, roots, and connection: planting seeds for future music, collaborations, and audiences.

Website – www.graemestephen-treesong.com

Graeme Stephen

Graeme Stephen is an award-winning composer, guitarist, and improviser working across jazz, contemporary classical music, folk, and free improvisation. He is positioned in the space between composition and improvisation, how music can remain open and responsive.

His work is shaped by over 30 years of collaboration and performance across many projects and a PhD in composition from the University of Edinburgh. He often writes for specific musicians, allowing their sound and approach to be part of the music, creating sonic environments that are structured but flexible, and shaped within performance.

Juliette Lemoigne

Juliette Lemoine is a Scottish cellist exploring and redefining the instrument’s role within contemporary Scottish Traditional Music. Her debut album ‘Soaring’, supported by the Beatrice Huntington Award for cellists, launched with a sold-out headline performance at Celtic Connections 2023 and went on to be long-listed for the Scottish Album of the Year Award 2023. Her emotive compositions weave through Scottish Traditional, Western Classical, and Jazz genres to create a highly personal new voice, receiving airplay on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Scotland.

Juliette also performs in a duo with tenor-guitarist Chris Amer, recent highlights including their headline Celtic Connections show (2024), performing at London Jazz Festival (2024), supporting LAU at King’s Place London (2024); and with the newly formed female-powerhouse trio Swinging on Birches with Madeleine Stewart (fiddle) and Heather Cartwright (guitar and voice).’