Reviewing Alison McNeill and Sasha Savaloni

Cowal Music Club’s concert in Dunoon’s Burgh Hall last Sunday featured one of Scotland’s foremost sopranos –Alison McNeill, accompanied by the outstanding Iranian-Scottish classical  guitarist, Sasha Savaloni.

They performed an absolutely fabulous concert with music featuring French, Spanish, Italian, English and Scottish composers, including contemporary and folk music, which enthralled the capacity audience. Alison McNeill is already well known in Dunoon, where she directs the Voices of Argyll Ladies’ choir, and right from the start, her beautiful voicemade a wonderful impression – with real quality and power,versatility, and immaculate intonation, - all of which she achieved with apparent ease. A natural perfomer, she was in total command of the different moods, characters, and colours which characterised her singing, and appeared totallycomfortable singing in languages such as Spanish or French.

Her duo partner Sasha proved to be a first-rate solo guitarist  as well as an excellent accompanist, with his performances of  works by John Dowland and the popular ‘Andaluza’ by Granados coming over especially well. His technique appeared flawless, this including careful re-tunings of his instrument as required, while his command of energetic rhythmic passages and beautiful cantabile playing in all registers were especially impressive.

Their programme embraced an eclectic mix of styles ranging from French composer Delibes “Les Filles de Cadiz” to contemporary Scottish composer Stuart MacRae’s “The Lif of this World”. – the latter with Alison singing from the gallery instead of onstage!  In the first part of the programme both the French folk-songs by Seiber and the 7 by Manuel de Fallareally delighted the audience, while in the second part, the 3 Scottish Folksong arrangements proved highly imaginative, and the quite remarkable “Moon”, by the contemporary Italian composer Marco Ramelli was both very effective and highly memorable. Alison and Sasha first performed this intriguing work just 7 years ago at the St Magnus Festival.

The finale, 2 songs, “Saeta” and “Farruca” by the Spanish composer Joaquin Turina, were so enthusiastically received that an encore was demanded!  And the duo obliged with a beautiful performance of “St Columba’s Prayer”,   – which made the perfect conclusion to a wonderful evening’s music making!

Cowal Music Club’s next concert will take place on  November 24th at 2.30pm in Dunoon’s Burgh hall, when the ADlibitum duo, Andrea & Djorje Gajic (violin & accordion) will perform.