Declan was in complete command of his respectable-sized audience in the church space of St Columba's-by-the-Castle as he tuned his classical guitar. He was telling us of the difficulty of tuning plastic guitar strings before launching into his own Awakenings. He is so very comfortable to listen to, and erudite. Before playing the next work, he was telling us how this work Crystal developed after reading Richard Dawkins 1976 book The Selfish Gene.
A graduate of London's Royal College of Music was a good reason to play Benga Beat by Gary Ryan, his teacher there. This was followed by some very sophisticated Turkish music, Carlo Domeniconi's Koyunbaba. The audience loved it.
But what was such progress since I last saw Declan play was his development with electronics. On leaving last year's Fringe festival Declan got hold of the full score of Steve Reich's 'Electric Counterpoint', spent four months learning and recording all thirteen guitar parts and created a mix to accompany him in a live performance. He then sent the audio files to his old school friend Amar Chundavadra, to create co-ordinated animations. The result on a large screen was spectacular. Watch him throw his boots off to tackle one of the electronic gadgets. There was hardly time for the encore with his other guitar. But The Girl from Ipanema seemed so appropriate as medals were being won at the Rio Olympics.
This is a show highly to be recommended. His entire audience showed by their applause just how much they had loved it last night.
Performance reviewed: Tuesday 16th August 2016 at 19:30, runs until 29th August