From the North Sea to a UNESCO City of Music, Nordic Resonance draws on environmental recordings, live electronics, acoustic sound, and improvisation to carry the textures and sound world of Shetland into The Old Hairdresser’s.
Maltese percussionist and sound artist Renzo Spiteri and Scottish flautist Richard Craig present Nordic Resonance, a new immersive sound performance inspired and shaped by Shetland’s environment. At the geographic crossroads between Scotland and Scandinavia where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea, The Shetland Islands are distinguished by a landscape of natural magnificence, bird calls, whale song, the force of the wind, and the ever-changing moods of the coastline and the sea. Using sound as a lived experience of place and developed through deep listening and extended engagement with the Shetland environment, Nordic Resonance explores how sound can carry the presence of landscape and its atmosphere beyond the place of origin and into theatres and performance spaces in urban areas.
Environmental sounds, whether presented in their pure form or transformed into abstracted textures, are key elements that shaped the creation of Nordic Resonance, with the musicians responding to, reacting against, and creating counterpoints to the field recordings. The result is a conversation: between environment and artist, between sound and sensation, between what is heard and what lies just beneath. Instruments, found sounds, and live processing blur the lines between the human and the elemental creating an immersive invocation of place through sound, and offering a space for resonance and reflection, where audiences can slow down and listen closely.
Renzo Spiteri’s performance practice is expansive, weaving percussion, found objects, live electronics, and improvisation into richly textured experiences. Winner of the 2025 Royal Television Society Craft and Design Award (Sound – Non-Scripted) and a 2025 Emmy® News and Documentary Nominee (Outstanding Sound – Documentary), Renzo has over three decades of international performance experience, performing across genres ranging from spoken word and world music to jazz, classical, and experimental work.
Praised by Gramophone Magazine for his “primal, at times ecstatic state of Fauvist force,” Richard Craig has developed a distinctive approach to contemporary flute performance. He has collaborated with renowned ensembles such as Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien, and the Riot Ensemble, and is a noted improviser and educator, currently serving as Director of Performance at the University of Edinburgh.
The performance will be followed by an artist talk/Q&A session about the project and its developmental process. Through this session the audience will be invited to be part of the project by offering thoughts, comments, and feedback about the work.
The project is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland with performances in Glasgow, Shetland and Malta.