Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation’ and Elijah

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The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) welcomes back young Canadian conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, for two weeks of concerts around Scotland, including Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 5 ‘Reformation’ and his epic choral masterpiece, Elijah, as part of the Orchestra’s Mendelssohn 200 celebration.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s career is going from strength to strength. At the start of the 2008/2009 season, he succeeded Valery Gergiev as Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and became Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal since March 2000. He made his debut with the SCO in April 2007 conducting cellist Han-Na Chang.

US-born pianist Nicholas Angelich performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, written by the composer for his wife Clara to showcase her musical talent. Angelich and Nézet-Séguin have worked together on many occasions, most recently with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. Nicholas Angelich began studying the piano at the age of five with his mother and gave his first concert, performing Mozart’s Concerto K467, when he was just seven. When he was 13, he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris where he studied with Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod, Michel Beroff and won the First Prize for piano and chamber music.

The SCO's Mendelssohn 200 series features masterworks from the composer’s symphonic, oratorio, theatre and chamber music oeuvres. Each concert presents the composer’s music in the company of work by those who inspired him and those he himself inspired.

In the first week of concerts, Nézet-Séguin is joined by pianist Nicholas Angelich for Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor at Eden Court, Inverness (21 January); Younger Hall, St Andrews (22 January); City Halls, Glasgow (23 January) and Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh (24 January). The programme also includes Schumann’s Overture, Manfred and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 5 ‘Reformation’. On 29 and 30 January in Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and Glasgow’s City Halls, bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu takes on the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, alongside the SCO Chorus and soloists Lucy Crowe, Karen Cargill and Mark Padmore.

For more information on tickets and concert times visit the SCO website.

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