The EIF’s home at The Hub is a real asset for performance at this year’s Festival. Opening up a different type of audience experience, its more relaxed ambience fits well with the informal presentational style of the artists. For this concert, it did even more. Extracting the London Symphony Orchestra’s percussion section from their mainstream orchestral concerts at Usher Hall gave another perspective on the Festival’s LSO Residency.

Hearing them on their own, in music specially commissioned from singer/songwriter/cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson and jazz pianist Gwilym Simcock, was a fabulous chance to enjoy another side to what these versatile four instrumentalists can do. Not only moving around the proverbial battery of instruments that make up the percussion section, from vibraphone and marimba to ocean drum and djembe, but transitioning from the rhythms of Shostakovich one night to the jazz, West African and cross-rhythms of their Hub programme the next.

Vocally and in presentation, Witter-Johnson has an easy, naturally self-confident style, with songs written from the heart and inspired by her own life and family experiences. With Simcock’s tonally rich jazz sound on piano, Witter-Johson’s cello didn’t really add anything to the mix, although it’s clearly part of her musical personality. 

Ayanna Witter-Johnson & LSO Percussion Ensemble reviewed at The Hub as part of Edinburgh International Festival.