Preview: Emerging Artists Series
Usher Hall Emerging Artists Concerts September 2025
Live Music Now Scotland and the Usher Hall have announced details of their 2025-2026 Emerging Artists concerts. The first four concerts will be held on Monday mornings at 11am during September. LMNS work with young musicians in the early stages of their professional careers, who provide music in communities for those who have few opportunities to access it. They also take part in public performances, for example at the National Gallery of Scotland, Music at Paxton and in these popular Usher Hall concerts.
On Monday September 8th at 11am, Juliette Lemoine, cello, and Chris Amer, tenor guitar, together explore traditional Scottish music with originality, energy and depth. Their live performances are an immersive dialogue characterised by rich emotional colour, close interaction and vibrant spontaneity. Recent highlights include their headline performance at Celtic Connections 2024, performing at London Jazz Festival 2024, and supporting folk supergroup LAU at Kings Place, London 2024.
Juliette and Chris have a passion for exploring Scottish traditional music and continue to gather a repertoire of tunes which are rooted in the real stories of people and places. Their repertoire spans tunes from 18th century Scotland right up to contemporary bluegrass melodies. Their varied backgrounds in jazz and classical music also feature in performances, with the duo equally at home playing jazz standards and popular melodies.
The concert on 15th September features the JKL DUO, Kerry Lazzaretti, flute, whistle and bodhran, and Jacopo Lazzaretti, classical/electric guitar, who teamed up in 2015, connecting over their shared love for improvisation, world, classical, jazz and Celtic music, and have since used their eclectic musical tastes to cultivate exciting multi-genre projects.
In 2023, Kerry and Jacopo released their debut album ‘The International Poet’, which pays homage to Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns. They toured this music extensively in concert series and festivals in Scotland and in Italy. My EMR review described the album as ‘a stimulating and thought-provoking take on the music found by Robert Burns’, and Canadian guitarist Michael Ibsen said, “To see such a well-executed and fresh concept for a chamber music album is a rare delight, and the world is all the richer for JKL Duo’s cheek in attempting such a project.” Hopefully we’ll hear some of this intriguing music in this concert.
On Monday 21st September, we hear No Borders, three lively string players, Frances Patterson, violin, Suzanne Godet, viola, and Joanna Stark, cello, who studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and started playing together when Frances called for volunteers to play at the dementia unit in Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH). The chemistry was so fruitful, and the demand for more concerts so strong that they decided to establish themselves as No Borders, a name which expresses their belief that music is for everyone. Their experiences show that the language of music could bring a real healing change in people’s lives. They were recipients of Glasgow UNESCO award scheme for their work at QEUH.
Their core repertoire is classical music including composers such as Beethoven, Kodály, Weiner, Dohnányi and Elgar The trio also enjoy storytelling through classical music, nurturing their audience’s imagination and providing an interactive way to listen to classical music.
On Monday 28th September we’ll hear saxophonist Matthew Kilner and guitarist Kevin Henderson who got together in Glasgow in 2022. With their shared love of jazz, a friendship formed, and since then, the duo has continued to play together in various venues and locations.
Matthew is from Aberdeen, has degrees in both BMus Community Music from The University of Aberdeen and MMus Performance (Jazz) from The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and is also on the Live Music Now Scotland scheme as part of the Birse Kilner Duo. Kevin is from Glasgow, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Jazz Undergraduate course who performs regularly with various other jazz groups around Scotland and is also an active piano and guitar tutor.
The Emerging Artists Concerts are available at the bargain price of £3. Each concert lasts around 45 minutes and there’s an opportunity to meet the performers afterwards.
The concerts are also funded by the Kimie Trust.
