The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) has announced its two thousand twenty-three-24 Season, celebrating fifty years of inspiring music-making across Scotland and beyond. Since its inaugural concert in Glasgow’s City Halls on twenty-seventh January one thousand nine hundred seventy-four, the SCO has been known for its pioneering spirit, outstanding musicianship and for bringing exceptional live performances to its audiences, classical masterworks to premieres by many of today’s most exciting composers.
Top of the agenda for the SCO's fiftieth anniversary season is the news that Maxim Emelyanychev is to prolong his contract as principal conductor through to two thousand twenty-eight. Maxim will launch the season with a nationwide tour, presenting Beethoven’s epic ‘Eroica’ symphony in seven different locations across Scotland. Perth to Aberdeen and Craigmillar to Ayr, Emelyanychev’s Tour of Scotland will also feature soloists including pianist Kirill Gerstein, clarinettist Maximiliano Martin and violist Max Mandel. The tour will also comprise a brand-new piece by SCO associate composer Jay Capperauld. Jay's The Origin of Colour (touring, twenty-seven September-7 October) tells a surrealist tale of the creation of colour on Earth.
To conclude the season, Emelyanychev presents Mendelssohn's dramatic oratorio Elijah with the massed forces of the SCO Chorus and an international line-up of soloists including Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams (9-10 May). The SCO, SCO Chorus and Maxim will also get Elijah to the BBC Proms this summer for a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall (twenty-nine July 2023). The season also features a visit a regular SCO collaborator, the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, who presents a typically eclectic trio of concerts as both soloist and director.
A birdsong-inspired programme explores music by Respighi and Tarrodi as well as bringing a fresh new perspective on Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as Pekka and cittern player Ale Carr intersperse the work with traditional Nordic folk tunes (7-9 March). Pekka directs a concert inspired by the wonders of the natural world, including music by Erkki-Sven Tüür and Einojuhani Rautavaara as well as the UK premieres of Helen Grime’s It'll Be Spring Soon and Anna Clyne’s violin concerto Time and Tides, featuring folk tunes Scotland, America and Finland (13-15 March). Further visitor conductors throughout the season comprise Andrew Manze, who brings his musical insights to two concerts.
The first features Ravel’s Piano Concerto with Steven Osborne as soloist (24-25 April), while the second is an all-Vaughan Williams concert featuring The Lark Ascending with SCO boss Stephanie Gonley as soloist and the composer’s Concerto Grosso featuring youthful string players the current SCO School (2-3 May). Else, composer and conductor Thomas Adès conducts the Orchestra in a concert that showcases music Haydn to Master of the King's Music Judith Weir, as well as a new orchestral version of his own rapturous The Origin of the Harp, weaving together threads of Celtic music and more contemporary sounds (11-12 April).
Star soloists throughout the 2023-24 season comprise Nicola Benedetti (pictured top) in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (13-15 December) and percussionist Colin Currie, who directs an evening of classic minimalism founding father Steve Reich to Julie Wolf and Arvo portion (9-10 November).
