Interchanging Idioms

Horn players required for world premiere of a new work from Pulitzer Prize/Grammy Award-Winning ‘eco-composer’ John Luther Adams At East Neuk Festival on 5 July 2015 The East Neuk Festival (ENF) is sounding the bugle far and wide for a herd (?) of horn players looking for outdoor musical adventures and challenges in rural Fife this summer. Following its hugely successful 2013 UK premiere of John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit for 30 percussionists, ENF has commissioned Across the Distance for massed horns for the finale of this year’s Festival. Led by SCO’s highly acclaimed young principal horn, Alec Frank-Gemill, and seven other top professional horn players from around the UK, the performance line-up is 32. Across The Distance will be performed for a promenade audience in and around the parkland and gardens of the glorious Cambo House and estate situated just south of St Andrews in the East Neuk of Fife. ENF director Svend Brown enthuses about the prospect of this unique p...

THREE SHOWS ONLY AT FESTIVAL THEATRE, EDINBURGH Thursday 7 – Saturday 9 June, Evenings 7.30pm; Matinee: Sat 2.15pm Ruddigore , Opera North’s hugely successful operetta, will come to Edinburgh Festival Theatre as part of a one-off tour this Summer as well as visiting new venues in Sheffield, Belfast and Dublin. Audiences in Edinburgh will now be able to revel in this witty Victorian melodrama, which is considered one of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most inventive works. Building on the spirit of collaboration established between Opera North and The Sage Gateshead, the Northern Sinfonia has been invited to perform alongside the Opera North chorus throughout the tour, whilst the Orchestra of Opera North performs the second installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Die Walküre , also across the country. First performed by Opera North in 2010 and then again last year and directed by Jo Davies, Ruddigore received widespread critical acclaim and was declared a ‘gem of a discovery’. The tale c...

Over the summer months, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra presents seven tours in Scotland, performing live orchestral music in towns and communities across the length and breadth of the country. During 2012 – the Year of Creative Scotland – the Orchestra continues its commitment to serve the whole of the nation with its 10th annual South of Scotland Tour, its 34th year of touring to the Highlands and Islands and the 6th Autumn Classics Tour visiting towns across central Scotland. Over and above these tours, the Orchestra is in demand at summer festivals – with appearances at the Aldeburgh, East Neuk, Lammermuir and Edinburgh International Festivals – and in the recording studio. South of Scotland Tour The SCO celebrates Scotland’s natural riches in music and song in concerts in Duns, Castle Douglas and Galashiels (24 – 26 May). The centrepiece of the programme is the premiere of Howard Moody’s Border Lines, a piece inspired by The National Trust for Scotland’s Nature Reserve at St...

Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša makes his SCO debut with a programme of music by Dvořák, Mozart and Beethoven at Inverness (Eden Court Theatre, Wednesday 2 May), Edinburgh (Queen’s Hall, Thursday 3 May) and Glasgow (City Halls, Friday 4 May). He opens the programme with music from his homeland: Antonín Dvořák draws on his national folk heritage of dances and romances in his Czech Suite. It is followed by Mozart’s dramatic Piano Concerto in D minor K466 with soloist Jonathan Biss, a work which was often performed by Beethoven, whose own Symphony No 2 closes the concerts. Hailed as one of ten young conductors "on the verge of greatness" (Gramophone, 2011), Jakub Hrůša was recently appointed Music Director of Royal Danish Opera from 2013/14, is Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Prague Philharmonia, Music Director of Glyndebourne on Tour, and Principal Guest Conductor of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Popular SCO guest conductor John Storgårds brings the Season ...

On its dedicated website the Elias String Quartet continues to share its intrepid journey of discovery of the Beethoven quartets as it reaches one of the most challenging milestones, the Grosse Fuge . Following on from Sara Bitlloch’s much admired insight film about the work, a complete Wigmore Hall performance is available from today as a webstream for a limited 10 day period only. The Quartet begins UK performances of the complete Beethoven Quartets cycle in the forthcoming season and, in the meantime, has recently captured the hearts of American audiences (and sold out at Carnegie Hall) on it’s US debut tour: “Few quartets at any stage of their evolution have this much personality - as manifested by an unusually warm blend [and] emotional individuality” ( Philadelphia Inquirer )

Highlights include: - Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati opens his fourth Season with the SCO with concert performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte - Celebration of Benjamin Britten centenary - Three of the world’s finest pianists play Mozart: Maria João Pires, Piotr Anderszewski and Robert Levin - Ticciati pays homage to the musical city of Vienna over two weeks in March - A salute to the Age of Romanticism throughout the Season, with a particular focus on Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Weber and Mendelssohn - Premieres of works by Lyell Cresswell, Einojuhani Rautavaara and James MacMillan - European Tour with Robin Ticciati and Maria João Pires - SCO Season debuts by soloists Veronika Eberle, Rachel Frenkel, Nelson Goerner, Matthias Goerne, Adam Plachetka, Swiss Piano Trio, Laura Tatulescu and Markus Werba, and conductors David Afkham, Adam Fischer and Thomas Rösner - SCO and RSNO continue collaborative Aberdeen Concert Series for second year The Scottish C...

Following a performance in Bilbao, Spain (26 March), the SCO and Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati head into the studio to make their second all-Berlioz recording together. Sessions begin on 2 April, just two weeks before the release of their first collaboration on Linn Records. Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was recorded following the Opening Concerts of the Orchestra’s 2011/12 Season, which included performances of the work, and is released on 16 April. The second disc features the composer’s L es Nuits d’été and La Mort de Cléopâtre , and reunites Ticciati and the SCO with Scottish mezzo soprano Karen Cargill, who has performed both of these works with the Orchestra in live performances during the 2009/10 and 2011/12 Seasons. Richard Egarr, recently announced as Associate Artist with the SCO, returns following his popular performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra in December 2011. He takes the dual roles of conductor and harpsichordist in a programme featur...

SCO welcomes in the New Year in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care Handel Water Music and Rameau with Emmanuelle Haïm Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati celebrates the music of György Ligeti, with associated study day The Scottish Chamber Orchestra welcomes in 2012 with a traditional Viennese New Year concert, in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. A Night in Old Vienna is conducted by Nicholas McGegan, a favourite with SCO audiences. The programme includes much-loved waltzes, polkas and marches by the Strauss family, including The Blue Danube , Champagne Polka and the Radetzky March . Young soprano Elena Xanthoudakis, recipient of a 2011 Borletti-Buitoni Award and already a regular at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, joins McGegan and the Orchestra to perform arias from Viennese operetta. The concert takes place on 1 January 2012 at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, before heading to Dumfries, Ayr and Perth (3, 4 & 5 January). ...

“Up until recently, I’d always found op.130 (and its last movement op.133) the hardest Beethoven quartet to understand. It’s the first, 3rd, 4th and last movements (the Grosse Fugue) that were particularly enigmatic to me. I didn’t understand the connections between movements, the tonality relationships, what the characters are, and the meaning of this 15 minute relentless fugue that ends it. The fugue seemed an intellectual tour de force to me, but without the incredible depth of emotion there is in all of Beethoven’s other music. However I was convinced that this must be from my own lack of understanding rather than Beethoven’s fault! We’ve just had a week of rehearsals to really get to grips with it, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to immerse myself in the op.130 world and find my way into it….” Such honesty comes from Elias String Quartet cellist, Sara Bitlloch, doing exactly what The Beethoven Project website and blog was set up to do – share thoughts, ideas, doubts -...

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra starts December with a seasonal treat: a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio conducted by popular SCO guest Richard Egarr (Queen’s Hall Edinburgh: 1 December; City Halls Glasgow: 2 December). Bach’s oratorio was written for performance on six feast days of Christmas during the winter of 1734 and 1735. The Orchestra will perform four of the work’s six cantatas: the first tells of the birth of Jesus; the third of the adoration of the shepherds and the fifth and sixth of the journey and adoration of the Magi. Egarr, who is widely recognised as one of the worlds’ finest Bach interpreters, leads a magnificent cast of British singers: soprano Mhairi Lawson, mezzo Clare Wilkinson, tenor Andrew Staples and bass Andrew Foster-Williams. Egarr commented: “The Christmas Oratorio, like all of Bach’s cantatas, contains his most personal and most colourful music. Every time I explore a new one of the over 200 cantatas, I’m amazed at the world that Bach creates...

Robin Ticciati conducts the second week of the Season in a programme which includes the premiere of a new work commissioned by the SCO from exciting young Glaswegian composer Martin Suckling: storm, rose, tiger . The title is adapted from a phrase in the short story The Circular Ruins by the great Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. The story of a magician’s attempts to dream into being a living man is, amongst other things, an allegory of the creative process which had particular resonance for Suckling. In the same programme, the brilliant violinist Viktoria Mullova makes her SCO debut and, with the Violin Concerto, launches the Orchestra’s Season-long journey through many of the concertos, symphonies and choral works of Beethoven. Popular guest conductor Thierry Fischer continues the Beethoven strand the following week with Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’, and is joined by great Dutch musician Pieter Wispelwey for the Haydn Cello Concerto in D. Olari Elts conducts the Season’s seco...

Robin Ticciati is passionate about Berlioz and continues his exploration of the composer’s works with Scottish Chamber Orchestra, opening the new season with Symphonie Fantastique and the rarely performed choral work Tristia on 6 October in Edinburgh and 7 October in Glasgow. He then goes into the studio for his first SCO recording (Linn Records) for TWO all-Berlioz releases including Symphony Fantastique , Overture to Béatrice & Bénédict and, for the second CD, La Mort de Cléopâtre and Les Nuits d’été with Scottish mezzo soprano Karen Cargill. “Berlioz’s masterwork Symphonie Fantastique is most commonly associated with the symphony orchestra, but I am extremely excited by the prospect of playing it with the SCO as our opening concert of this new Season. It represents a natural continuation of our Berlioz journey which began with La Mort de Cléopâtre and L’Enfance du Christ , and I am hoping that with a rigorous attention to phrasing, articulation, the colour of dissona...

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is launching a pilot series of concerts – Big Ears, Little Ears – for parents and young babies across central Scotland this September, providing mums, dads and carers with the chance to share the experience of high quality live music with their infants in an informal atmosphere. The concerts will be of a baby-friendly, 45 minute duration, starting at 11am, and take place in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling between 27 – 29 September. The programme of music – performed live by the Orchestra – includes well-known classics by Mendelssohn, Prokofiev and Beethoven as well as traditional Scottish folksongs and lullabies performed by popular Scottish mezzo soprano Karen Cargill. Tickets cost £6 for a parent with a child aged 18 months or younger. In launching this series, the SCO aims to provide an affordable and accessible shared experience for parents and babies where they can enjoy a performance by an internationally renowned orchestra. Louise Mar...

11 June 2011: It is announced today that Roy McEwan, Chief Executive of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, is awarded an OBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2011 for services to music. Mr McEwan commented: “Everything we do in the performing arts is achieved through working together, so any recognition of this kind is an accolade for the arts in Scotland; in my case, for all the organisations I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the last thirty years and, above all, for the wonderful Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I’m delighted and feel very privileged.” Donald MacDonald, Chairman of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Roy has been given this well-deserved award. Since Roy became Chief Executive of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in the early 1990s, he has played a crucial role in establishing it as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world with an international reputation for its live performances at home and abroad and its many recordings....

Mozart at the Piano is one of the threads that weaves this season programme together, offering audiences the opportunity to hear some of the composer’s greatest piano concertos. World renowned Mozart scholar, Robert Levin, makes his SCO performer/director debut with two of Mozart’s greatest concertos from the mid-1780s, contrasting the dramatic weight of the C minor with the lyrical brilliance of the G major. He inserts these concertos between the movements of Haydn’s Symphony No 97 - something Haydn would have taken forgranted. With further demonstration of his active mastery of the Classical music language Levin follows these performances with a chamber concert in which he joins SCO Principals for the Mozart Quintet in E-flat K452 and performs the Sonata in D K576. Much loved guest conductor Oliver Knussen introduces another debut artist, the Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen playing Schumann’s Cello Concerto in a concert that opens with Knussen’s own take on Mussorgsky’s La Coutouriè...

Benedetti Records Romantic Violin Repertoire Released February 22nd, 2011 Performances in Atlanta, South Carolina, North Carolina and Pittsburgh in February and March “Freely expressive…spontaneous and from the heart. Altogether a very competitive coupling of two of the great violin warhorses, a credit to a fine young artist and her associates. “Gramophone On February 22nd, Deutsche Grammophon will release violinist Nicola Benedetti’s fifth recording for the label, Tchaikovsky and Bruch’s beloved Violin Concertos. Recorded with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of conductor Jakub Hrůša, the disc has already received accolades from critics in her native Britain, where the Herald Scotland called the recording “the most important thing she has ever done…a momentous disc.” At the age of 23, several years into a professional career which began at 16 with a hugely popular victory in the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition, Nicola Benedetti is finally recording two of...

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has, with regret, made the decision to cancel its performance at the Music Hall, Aberdeen tomorrow evening, Saturday 4 December. The Orchestra has been monitoring the weather and travel conditions carefully over the past few days and has considered all the possible options to enable the concert to go ahead. However, with no indication of any significant improvement in the weather and travel conditions, we have taken the decision to cancel the concert. Earlier this week, the Orchestra had to cancel a concert at Perth Concert Hall - the first time the Orchestra has ever had to cancel a concert due to adverse weather conditions. The Aberdeen Box Office will do its utmost to contact all ticket buyers to advise them of the cancellation and full refunds will be given. The Orchestra sincerely regrets any disappointment or inconvenience caused. The Orchestra and Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati were due to perform a programme of music by Takemitsu, Ravel...

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has, with regret, made the decision to cancel its performance at Perth Concert Hall this evening, Wednesday 1 December. The Orchestra has been monitoring the weather and travel conditions carefully over the past few days and had made special arrangements for a coach to take players to Perth from the Orchestra’s base in Edinburgh. However, with the closure of the Forth Road Bridge this morning and further snow falling and forecast in both Edinburgh and Perth areas, there was no option but to cancel the concert. It is, we believe, the first time the Orchestra has ever had to cancel a concert due to adverse weather conditions. At the moment, it is hoped that scheduled concerts in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen (2 – 4 December) will go ahead as planned. Perth Concert Hall Box Office will do its utmost to contact all ticket buyers to advise them of the cancellation and full refunds will be given. The Orchestra sincerely regrets any disappointment or inco...

Robin Ticciati has extended his contract as Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for a further three years until 2015. Ticciati, who opens the Orchestra’s 2010/11 Season this evening with a concert performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, took up the post of Principal Conductor in September 2009 for an initial three-year period. The young British conductor is already enjoying considerable international success: as well as his position with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, he is Principal Guest Conductor of the Bamberger Symphoniker and has received re-invitations to the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. He made his conducting debuts at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival this year. In the 2010/11 Season, he makes his debuts with the Wiener Symphoniker, Royal Concertgebouw, Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras.

Following the death of Sir Charles Mackerras, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will dedicate the Opening Concerts of its 2010/11 Season – concert performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni – to the memory of the Orchestra’s beloved and venerable Conductor Laureate. The performances – at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on Thursday 7 October and Glasgow’s City Halls on Friday 8 October – will be conducted by the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati, and feature a world-class line-up of soloists including Florian Boesch, Maximilian Schmitt and Kate Royal. Sir Charles and the SCO were internationally renowned for their performances and recordings of Mozart’s music, including CD releases of seven Mozart operas and the recent multi-award winning disc of the composer’s last four symphonies. Don Giovanni was of particular significance to Sir Charles: in 1991 he conducted a new production of the opera at the re-opening of the Estates Theatre in Prague, scene of the work’s premiere, to mark the bi-...