How do memories make us who we are? Music and poetry meet neuroscience to seek the answer, with voices and strings woven together to explore the richness and strangeness and beauty that builds from our earliest moments of life.

Orkney Camerata String Quintet is joined by soprano Hannah Firth in a work by composer J. Harry Whalley, with speakers Flora Munro and Adam Zeman. The words are by Adam Zeman and Alexander McCall Smith, and the performance is conducted by Peter Nelson.

Sir Alexander McCall Smith reflects on the collaboration here.

Adam Zeman will be speaking earlier in the day on the subject of the power of the imagination in The Shape of Things Unseen at 10 am in the Kirkwall Baptist Church.

With funding from the University for the Creative Arts

Orkney Camerata String Quintet: Elizabeth Sullivan (violin), Lesley MacLeod (violin), Sandy Dennison (viola), Lilian Kelly (cello), Michael Bell (double bass).

Harry Whalley is a Belfast-born composer based in Scotland whose work includes film scores, concert pieces, and electronic music. He is a reader in music composition and technology at the University for the Creative Arts.

Hannah Firth has performed with Dorset Opera, Leeds Baroque, Opera Camerata and Northern Opera and has toured throughout Europe with the Edinburgh University Renaissance Singers and Cantilena. She moved home to Orkney to start up Orkney Music Rooms in 2021 and continues to perform regularly across the UK.

Adam Zeman has a background in philosophy, psychology, medicine and neurology, and is Honorary Professor of Neurology at Exeter University’s Medical School and Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences. His interests include the science of visual imagery and the mind-brain relationship.

Flora Munro is a Scottish actor-musician, voiceover artist and continuity announcer on STV. She sings with the Berrie Big Band and the Glasgow Gaelic Musical Association and she’s narrated for both Scottish Opera and McOpera’s UK premiere of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.

Peter Nelson is a composer and music scholar. He has conducted many performances of new music with amateur and professional ensembles including Edinburgh Contemporary Ensemble, Red Note Ensemble, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He directed the first performance of On Memory at King’s Place in London.

Alexander McCall Smith, who co-wrote the text, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. For many years he was a professor of medical law before turning his hand to writing fiction, and particularly the highly successful series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.