Sonica Glasgow's final weekend at Tramway is packed: UK premieres on Friday, a Steve Reich birthday performance on Saturday, and electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani making her Scottish debut on Sunday. The festival's Bowie Symphony concert with the RSNO took place on Thursday, but there is plenty still to catch before Sonica closes on 4 October.
Friday 2 October
AIR, 7pm to 7.45pm. Tickets are £12, or £7 concession. Roberto Maqueda plays a set of drum machines without touching them, triggering each one with air through custom valves, while visuals by new media studio Structurals turn every beat into webs of light.
LES EMPIRES and Hymnal, 8.15pm. Tickets are £25, or £13 concession. This double bill opens with the UK premiere of LES EMPIRES: Guillaume Coutu Dumont's retrofuturist music, where electro synths meet house piano, set against Line Katcho's visuals, which the listing calls "a breakneck tour through impossible empires". Then Alif Hilal (formerly Lyra Pramuk) performs Hymnal, drawing on church choirs and Berlin club culture, with visuals by Lucy Beech. Allow 135 minutes including an interval.
Saturday 3 October
Music for 18 Musicians, 7pm to 8pm. Tickets are £22, or £11 concession. This Scottish premiere marks the 90th birthday of Steve Reich, one of the world's best-known minimalist composers. His 1976 piece builds from pulsing, gradually shifting patterns of marimbas, pianos and voices. Charles Hazlewood conducts Paraorchestra, the UK's first integrated orchestra of disabled and non-disabled musicians. They play in a circle, and audiences are free to wander among the performers or stay still.
Tramway says main auditorium tickets are sold out. Restricted-view balcony seats are on sale at £18, or £9 concession, though you cannot stand or move around up there. The performance is audio described.
FISHER PRICE PIPES and Broken Vinyl, 8.30pm. Tickets are £16, or £8 concession. Harry Górski-Brown sings traditional Gaelic folksongs over small pipes and electronic drone, with live visuals. Then Mieko Suzuki and Claudia Rohrmoser build danceable rhythms from scratched and warped records in the UK premiere of Broken Vinyl. It runs about 100 minutes including a 20-minute interval, so you can go straight from Reich.
Sunday 4 October
I Dreamt of Fire, 2pm. Tickets are £12, or £7 concession. In this UK premiere, Marie Delprat and Tom Lane build a waiting room where the audience take a number, take a seat and wait, as an electronic soundtrack churns and surveillance screens glow. It runs 40 minutes with no interval and is recommended for ages 12 and over.
Suzanne Ciani, Improvisation on Four Sequences, 3.15pm to 4.15pm. Tickets are £30, or £18 concession. Ciani is a five-times Grammy-nominated composer who has been central to electronic music since the 1970s. She has scored films, video games and adverts, and Tramway bills her as the "first female synth hero". This is her first Scottish appearance. She plays the Buchla synthesiser she loves, moving from early musique concrète to modern dance beats. It runs 60 minutes with no interval.
Booking and access
Book at sonic-a.co.uk or tramway.org, or call the box office on 0141 276 0950. Phone lines are open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm, so book Sunday's shows online or by Saturday afternoon. Online bookings carry a £1.50 transaction fee and phone bookings £1.75. Sonica Pass holders get 25% off, and Sonica lists free tickets for carers. Availability may have changed, so check before travelling.
Tramway lists strobe effects, flashing lights and loud or sudden noises for AIR, LES EMPIRES and Hymnal, FISHER PRICE PIPES and I Dreamt of Fire.
Tramway is at 25 Albert Drive, G41 2PE. It has level access, lifts to upper spaces, designated wheelchair spaces and accessible toilets on all three levels, and welcomes assistance dogs. There is no cloakroom, and bags larger than A3 may be refused at busy events.
