iuchair Ensemble
Govan Old Parish Church 24/7/26
iuchair Ensemble
It’s been 3 years since I last attended and reviewed a concert given by the iuchair Ensemble; there were similarities and differences. The format, venue and context were the same: a 1-hour programme in the late 19th-century Gothic Revival Govan Old Church, presented as part of the Glasgow Barons Early Music Festival. The Old Church was built on an ancient (5th century) ecclesiastical site and is now also home to a collection of 10th-century Strathclyde Viking sculpture recovered from the site, called the Govan Stones. Three years ago, the programme consisted of 15th-century liturgical and ecclesiastical music, including a mass by Franco-Flemish composer Petrus de Domarto, and motets by his named contemporaries. This time it was 12th century devotional music from Santiago de Compostela, really old polyphony for St James from the Codex Calixtinus, all pieces anonymous. Another (logistic rather than artistic) difference was timing: late night instead of early evening. A final difference was the substitution of bass Zak McCullough for their regular bass Joshua McCullough (I have been unable to ascertain whether they are related). The ensemble (iuchair is Scots Gaelic for ‘key’ – eochair is the Irish spelling) comprises three tenors and a bass (all with flexible extended tonal range). Three years ago. a bodhrán player added spice to the mix.
Just 6 months after my last iuchair review, Joshua McCullough began to register on my reviewer’s radar as a solo performer (also visually hard to miss: he is very tall), first in 3 RCS productions, then at 2 productions in last year’s Wexford Festival. He is also a member of the Sòlas Ensemble. I notice that both McCulloughs sang in the basses of NYCoS for Tavener’s epic ‘The Veil of the Temple’ which opened last year’s Edinburgh International Festival. In the Acknowledgements of his 2025 UofG Ph.D. thesis (link below), ‘Musical reuse in the Notre Dame repertory: historiography and new computational directions’, tenor Joshua Stutter recalls the impulse that led him to approach fellow musicians in 2017/8 to form a vocal ensemble to “get together and perform some thirteenth-century organum”. He writes of an aversion to the “dry and precious manner in which much early music is often performed”, plus an appetite for “early music ... tackled with new and vivid approaches”. an antithesis to “all (that was) sterile and lacklustre in performance practice” and the need for an ensemble “not afraid to perform medieval music low, fast, and loud”. Also, resolving to regard “the relationship of academia to performance as more than just a one-way street”. Three years ago, that described iuchair perfectly. It still does. They perform exclusively from in-house editions that are tailored to the group (collaboratively edited in rehearsal). The other two tenors are Edward Marshall and Alasdair Robertson, who also sing with the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir. Edward has a Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Glasgow and is a research funding specialist at University of Edinburgh with a wide personal range of research interests.
The singers began, processing up the nave to the altar from the back of the church, singing ‘Congaudeant catholici’. A jaunty dotted sprung rhythm carried a unison melody, framing a slower more ornamented verse. ‘Dum esset’ started with an incantation, Zak joined shortly by Joshua, then all four singing organum. The central section featured an ornate and very expressively delivered first tenor line from Joshua, underscored by slower-moving unison from the others, concluding with a reprise of the incantation. For ‘Nostra phalanx’, Edward and Alasdair remained at the altar and the other two went to the back of the church to exploit the antiphonal effect. Next up, ‘Iacobe sancte tuum’ kept this spatial arrangement for what was to be my favourite of the 10 pieces. Over many verses, one pair sang a verse and then one of them sang a solo incantation, which was answered by the other pair, the pattern then alternating over the verses. Satisfying though this antiphony was, it was the melody of the verses that seemed to reach across 7 centuries, with tenderness that would not be out of place in a Bruckner motet. I didn’t want it to end. As a contrast, ‘Gratulantes celebremus’ was short and sweet for just two voices, Edward and Alasdair.
All four voices were back at the altar for ‘Huic Iacobo’, and it seemed to reach back in antiquity with extended passages of plainchant, alternating with an expressive ornate tenor line over slow-moving plainchant base. This quasi-primitive austerity in the presence of the Govan Stones evoked a very moving sense of ancient devoutness for this reviewer. Plenty of winding monastic plainchant in the next number ‘Alleluia vocavit’ too, with Alasdair taking the ornamented tenor line. For ‘Ad superni regis decus’, we were back to just two voices in front. With challenging special effects like hocketing and diminuendi, this was the only number in which there was any hint of slippage of intonation, but it was still quite thrilling. Joshua began ‘Iacobe virginei’, but the expressive moving tenor line fell to Alasdair, and very pleasing it was, offset by more sinuous plainchant. The concert concluded with ‘Portum in ultimo’, with embryonic polyphony alternating with organum and plainchant, and some pleasing low bass drone effects from Zak. Excellent.
This was a well-attended concert and very well received by the enthusiastic audience, Simultaneously transporting a modern audience back to ancient times and ancient music forward to modern relevance and appreciation is quite a feat, expertly and engagingly realised. Full marks from me.
Link: https://www.glasgowbarons.com/events/iuchair
Joshua Stutter’s PhD thesis:https://theses.gla.ac.uk/85172/2/2025StutterPhD.pdf