As titles of new pieces of music go, Jay Capperauld's 'Death In A Nutshell' has got to be one of the more unusual. In spoken or written language, 'in a nutshell' refers to summing something up in a few words. In this case, however, the nutshell refers to dollhouse-scale miniature recreations of true-crime scenes.

In the 1940s, American forensic scientist Frances Glessner Lee came up with Nutshell Studies Of Unexplained Death in order to help train forensic detectives and murder investigators so they didn't unintentionally destroy critical evidence. 'Each of the 20 rooms contains a crime scene in miniature detail which has taken place in mysterious circumstances,' explains Ayrshire-born Capperauld. 'I've focussed on six rooms and try to represent them in a musical sense, starting with the parlour, through to the kitchen and then upstairs to the bedrooms. It's a sort of macabre house tour in which the audience is invited to become investigators.'

If this starts to conjure up images of dark, shadowy figures creeping up behind unsuspecting victims with whatever might be to hand in an otherwise blissfully domestic kitchen, then that's the idea. 'I use unusual percussion instruments, trying to capture the sounds of the kitchen, perhaps a struggle with pots and pans and, for one of the other rooms, an actual hammer.' For the audience, the concept is to imagine and enter this unusual sound world as collaborative crimebusters with Capperauld presenting the musical evidence. 'It's shrouded in mystery,' he says, 'which is something I really love.'

This sense of mystery permeates the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's hour-long programme in which the new piece will be first heard. Complementing it is Charles Ives' 'The Unanswered Question' and Mahler's 'Adagietto, From Symphony No 5', as famously used in Luchino Visconti's classic film Death In Venice.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Thursday 11 November; City Halls, Glasgow, Friday 12 November.