Formed in 2019, award-winning violin and cello duo GAIA have rapidly won plaudits for their pioneering programming and bold and daring performances.Their debut album release features three works specially written for the duo, and also bears testimony to their championing of works by underrepresented and overlooked voices from classical music’s past.

Elements of folk and jazz string-playing styles rub shoulders with traditional chamber-music imperatives in a programme that is full of women’s voices: those of the performers; of composers Sally Beamish, Rebecca Clarke and Elizabeth Maconchy; and of the singers of two Scottish folksongs, taped recordings of which frame Duncan Strachan’s hauntingly evocative Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.