Live Nai Barghouti & Quartet with the RSNO Sat 20 June

Jon works across musical genres as a composer, arranger and conductor, from his base in Scotland. His professional portfolio over the last 10 years encompasses artistic directorships; conducting new music, as well as standard orchestral repertoire and opera; composing/arranging for orchestras, singer-songwriters and other artists; and executive production for recording projects; He co-founded the Octandre Ensemble with the composer Christian Mason in 2011. He has conducted and led the Ensemble in festival appearances in London and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, leading to appearances on BBC Radio 3, and CD releases on Another Timbre and SN Variations. He was founding Co-Artistic Director of Glasgow’s Nevis Ensemble until 2022, conducting over 200 performances in settings ranging from schools and prisons to museums, art galleries and concert halls, as well as on top of Ben Nevis and on the remote isles of St Kilda. Since 2023, he conducts the Film Composers Lab at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO).

Jon has a long-term and deep-rooted interest in musical value and meaning. He has published music analytic work, as well as collaborations in the social psychology of music, music education and embodied music cognition. Jon teaches at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Moving her audience to tears, laughs, elation, and a long-standing ovation is not exceptional for this exceptional award-winning Palestinian singer, flutist and composer. At the age of 14, she launched her professional singing career and completed her studies in classical flute performance at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Palestine, where she discovered a passion for composition. 

The Jerusalem-born artist, Nai Barghouti, has been praised as a “classical diva” and an “exceptional virtuousa.” After studying classical music and jazz vocal technique for two years at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music​ ​in the U.S., Nai moved to Amsterdam, where she was awarded both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with​ ​honors from the Conservatory of Amsterdam. 

Nai’s virtuosity, critics have said, evokes vocal qualities of three leading Arab divas — Asmahan’s velvety depth, Umm Kulthoum’s powerful projection, range and control, and Fairouz’s angelic and deeply emotivehead resonance.

Nai combines her talent with academic achievement to deepen her knowledge of music and vocal techniques. In her studies, she explored the nexus between Arabic Tarab music and Jazz, inventing NaiStrumentation – دَندَناي – a layered ornamental technique for using the voice as a musical instrument.