Konrad, who is also one of the internationally acclaimed Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s star soloists, won the Instrumentalist of the Year title at the Scottish Jazz Awards in 2017. And Euan, who has given concerts and had compositions performed in the UK and US, has a deeply musical family background that includes film soundtrack conductor Muir Mathieson (who conducted the music from Brief Encounter) and the composer Cedric Thorpe Davie, who studied with Vaughan Williams and designed St Andrews University’s music course.

The two musicians formed New Focus to perform a fiftieth anniversary tribute to saxophone legend Stan Getz’s 1961 ‘jazz with strings’ album, Focus, and have since recorded two albums of original music for Whirlwind Recordings. Their first album, simply titled New Focus, was shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year award in 2012 and the follow-up, New Focus on Song, which reflected their engagement with both pop and folk music, was also very well received.

They have played at a number of prestigious events, including BBC Radio 3’s 70th Birthday celebrations at the South Bank in London in 2016, in a concert that was broadcast live. Since then they have appeared in duo, quartet and nonet form at venues and festivals including the world-famous Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho and Celtic Connections in Glasgow.  

Current projects include the New Focus Quartet, New Focus with Strings (jazz quartet with string quartet and pedal harp) and their duo presentation The Classical Connection.

The Classical Connection has earned five-star reviews for its exploration of the influence classical composers have exerted on jazz musicians.

In this superbly well-informed, entertaining and informal presentation Euan and Konrad improvise a Bach-style reinvention and an arrangement of the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s theme tune, Take The A Train in the style of a Mozart Sonata.

Audiences can discover why romantic composers like Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Duke Ellington all loved the same key. They can also learn why Miles Davis and Eric Satie were kindred spirits and hear brilliantly performed jazz standards and original compositions from the two widely acclaimed New Focus albums.