Maxim Emelyanychev celebrates 7 seasons with Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a year that includes new music by Jay Capperauld, Helen Grime, Jörg Widmann and Magnus Lindberg

Maxim Emelyanychev and Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Amazingly, 2025/26 will be Maxim Emelyanychev's seventh season as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and he will be presenting ten programme with the orchestra during the season, along with Andrew Manze as principal guest conductor. Emelyanychev's programmes include Strauss' Metamorphosen, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, contrasting Glorias from Vivaldi and Poulenc, Berlioz' L'enfance du Christ , Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Mozart's final three symphonies. The orchestra's principal cellist, Philip Higham joins him for Schumann's Cello Concerto, and violinist Nicola Benedetti joins Emelyanychev and the orchestra for Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

Earlier this year, I had an enjoyable chat to the orchestra's associate composer Jay Capperauld [see my interview]  and the season will feature three of Capperauld's works. Andrew Manze conducts The Language of Eden, a choral work that reimagines the birth of language itself, and a second work will also feature the chorus, The Winter's Brightening, whilst Stylus Scarlatti reimagines Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas for the bright colours of the orchestra. Whilst Capperauld's The Great Grumpy Gaboon will be returning too.

Other new music includes the UK premiere of Scottish composer Helen Grime’s River, performed by the orchestra and director/percussionist Colin Currie, the UK premiere of Jörg Widmann’s affectionate homage to Schumann, Albumblätter, and Magnus Lindberg’s Viola Concerto, dedicated to its performer here, Lawrence Power. The SCO Chorus will be performing on of Roderick Williams' works, O Adonai, as part of their seasonal concerts, whilst the baritone himself will be performing Berlioz and Butterworth with the orchestra.

Violinist Alina Ibragimova will be the soloists in Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre, a work she has long championed. Andrew Manze and the orchestra's clarinettist Maximiliano Martín present three iconic works by John Adams, Shaker Loops, Gnarly Buttons, and Fearful Symmetries as part of the New Dimensions series which also includes Colin Currie in Steve Reich and Joe Duddell along with Helen Grime's River, and saxophonist Jess Gillam in Anna Clyne, George Walker and Caroline Shaw, as well as two works written especially for her, by John Harle and Dani Howard.

SCO Tea Dance Concerts

The orchestra’s Creative Learning activities reach over 10,000 people across Scotland every year, and this year the season includes multisensory family concerts, Immerse concerts for secondary schools, tea dance concerts and a continuation of their Craigmillar Residency. They will be celebrating five years of the Craigmillar Residency with Tapestry - a showcase featuring performances by the SCO Seen and Heard Ensemble and SCO Craigmillar Voices choir, including a 25-minute work curated by Jay Capperauld.  

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Bruckner's obsession with death, Scottish Gaelic folk poetry & a grumpy gaboon: I chat to Scottish composer Jay Capperauld, currently the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's associate composer

Jay Capperauld (Photo: Euan Robertson)

The Scottish composer Jay Capperauld is currently the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's (SCO) Associate Composer and this month he has two sets of performances of his works. On 19 February SCO premieres Jay's new piece, Bruckner's Skull in Dumfries with performances in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Written as a death-mask homage to composer Anton Bruckner in the 200th Anniversary year of his birth, Bruckner’s Skull is inspired by Bruckner’s obsession with death, and in particular the two alleged occasions when Bruckner cradled the skulls of both Beethoven and Schubert when their bodies were exhumed and moved to Vienna’s Central Cemetery in 1888.

Before then, SCO revives Jay's work for children, The Great Grumpy Gaboon, and later in the season, they will premiere Jay's Carmina Gadelica for wind dectet, inspired by the Gaelic incantations, hymns, and songs collected by Alexander Carmichael in his work of the same name.

Bruckner's Totenmaske (Death Mask), 1896

Jay admits that he is rather drawn to strange stories and is interested in story-telling in music, the challenge of how to create a musical narrative with a story in wordless form. Bruckner's Skull is inspired by the great composer's deathly fixations. Some of the stories are anecdotal, but Bruckner did spend time in a sanatorium for what we would now call OCD. The symptoms of OCD manifest in a way in which a person experiences uncontrollable, intrusive, distressing and recurring thoughts (obsessions) which are alleviated by engaging in repetitive behaviours and actions (compulsions) that are attributed to a specific fear of dire consequences (to themselves, loved ones or others) if those behaviours and actions are not completed to a perceived satisfactory degree.

Bruckner's reported fixations included giving specific instructions on his own burial under the organ that he played at St Florian Monastery and the keeping of lists of his female students to whom he would continually propose well into his old age. The duality in his hyper-religious grandiose sense of divine musical purpose coupled with his extreme shyness and debilitating low self-esteem. Jay is interested in these fixations, not only how to convey the story in music but also what does it say about Bruckner himself. Who was the man and how do we deal nowadays with the more problematic elements of his fixations?

Jay intends his piece to humanise Bruckner and get to the crux of the man from a more empathetic perspective. Musically, Jay is interested not so much in what is happening but in why, for instance, the oboe interacts in the way it does. For Bruckner's Skull, Jay uses snippets of Bruckner's music which he treats in a hyper-fixated way, making the music feel as if we are hearing it through Bruckner's obsessive qualities. Through the compositional process, Jay tries to reflect Bruckner's mind.

Bruckner’s Skull, Nordic Music Days, New Dimensions and Re:Connect: Scottish Chamber Orchestra's new season

Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanychev in Aberdeen (Photo: Christopher Bowen)

The 2024/25 season sees Maxim Emelyanychev returning for his sixth season as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) with nine concerts, both as conductor and as soloist. Andrew Manze takes up a new role as SCO's principal guest conductor, directing three concerts during the season from Scandinavian contemporary music to Mozart to Faure's Requiem.

The SCO will be giving seven premieres during the season including Bruckner’s Skull by Jay Capperauld, the SCO's associate composer. Bruckner’s Skull delves into Bruckner’s macabre fascination with fellow composers Schubert and Mozart. SCO will also be premiering Capperauld's Carmina Gadelica, inspired by the wonders of Gaelic hymns, incantations and lore, whilst his The Great Grumpy Gaboon, a musical adventure written in collaboration with children's author Corrina Campbell, returns after sell-out performances throughout Scotland in 2023.

Mark Wigglesworth conducts the UK premiere of Péter Eötvös' Aurora with SCO’s principal double bass Nikita Naumov. Eötvös, who died in March aged 80, dreamt up the work while contemplating the Northern Lights aboard a plan high above Alaska. And there will be music from the SCO’s youngest-ever commissioned composer, Georgian teenager Tsontne Zédginidze. 

As part of Nordic Music Days, Andrew Manze conducts Scottish premiere of Anders Hillborg's Viola Concerto with Laurence Power is the soloist, alongside music by Madeleine Isaksson and Sir James MacMillan’s powerful Second Symphony, written for the SCO in 1999. This concert is also part of a new SCO concert series, New Dimensions, with a more informal concert format and programmes designed to encourage audiences to stretch musical imaginations. Other concerts in the series are Ad Absurdum, with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting Jörg Widmann’s Ad Absurdum, Sir James Macmillan’s Tryst and John Adams’ Chamber Concerto, and Parabola where violinist Pekka Kuusisto and pianist/conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips join the SCO for an eclectic programme of music by Thomas Adès, Timo Andres, Sally Beamish and Haydn.

The SCO's long-standing Re:Connect programme for people living with dementia will continue to be delivered at Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Building this, and developing the SCO's ongoing partnership with Alzheimer Scotland, the SCO presents four dementia-friendly concerts in the 2024-25 Season. The performances offer an afternoon of music and light refreshments designed especially for people living with dementia, their friends and carers. 

The SCO will enter the fourth year of its residency in Craigmillar in Edinburgh, continuing to deliver workshops, events and performances across the community through its regular schools’ programme, which sees the SCO working with one local nursery, four primary schools and the local high school throughout the academic year and a programme of community projects with different local partners across the Greater Craigmillar area. And the SCO will also offer a programme of open rehearsals for secondary school pupils so they can discover how a professional orchestra works, see a performance take shape and observe how the Orchestra prepares for a public performance

Full details from the SCO website.

Prom 19: Maxim Emelyanychev & Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Mendelssohn's Elijah

Mendelssohn: Elijah - Roderick Williams, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, SCO Chorus, Maxim Emelyanychev - BBC Proms (Photo: Chris Christodoulou)

Mendelssohn: Elijah; Carolyn Sampson, Rowan Pierce, Helen Charlston, Andrew Staples, Roderick Williams, SCO Chorus, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanychev; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall

Emelyanychev's historically informed approach complemented by some vivid choral singing in a performance a world away from the traditional oratorio view of Mendelssohn

Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev brought Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and SCO Chorus (chorus master Gregory Batsleer) to the Royal Albert Hall on 29 July 2023 for the BBC Proms. Roderick Williams sang Elijah with soloists Carolyn Sampson and Rowan Pierce, sopranos, Helen Charlston, mezzo-soprano, and Andrew Staples, tenor.

Whilst there are no textural or editorial problems with Elijah, Mendelssohn did leave performers with questions which need answering before performing the work, notably what language to sing it in and how many soloists to use. Mendelssohn wrote the work in German, but had the English translation in parallel and worked closely with the translator to ensure that the English worked. He knew that the premiere was in English, and would have expected any performance in England to be in the language of the audience, as was this performance.

Mendelssohn: Elijah - Helen Charlston, Rowan Pierce, Carolyn Sampson, SCO Chorus - BBC Proms (Photo: Chris Christodoulou)

The issue of how many soloists is more tricky. Mendelssohn would have expected a whole posse of soloists, providing the solos, duet, trio, quartets and octet, but to modern ears this leaves fine singers rather woefully underemployed. [see my article 'In search of Elijah' for more detail of the first performance] During the 20th century, the convention sprang up to perform the work with four soloists and use a semi-chorus for the ensembles. For this performance, Emelyanychev took a middle way; the first quartet and the octet were sung by semi-chorus, but the final quartet was sung by the soloists and Rowan Pierce, who sang the Youth, joined Carolyn Sampson and Helen Charlston for the Angels' trio.

There was an element of middle-way about the orchestral forces too. The horns and the brass were using period instruments, the horn players surrounded by loops of tubing. Mendelssohn uses the brass to support the chorus and in the big ensembles, this change to narrower bore historic-style instruments has an important effect, lightening and removing traditional oratorio stodge. This was still a big performance, Elijah is no chamber piece, but Emelyanychev's approach was lighter and more fleet. This was much less of a dramatic monolith than some traditional performances. This was reflected in the soloists, all of whom had lyric voices.

50th anniversary: Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanychev celebrate with a diverse and imaginative season

Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Maxim Emelyanychev (Photo Christopher Bowen)

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is celebrating its 50th anniversary with its 2023/24 season led by principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, who has extended his contract through to 2028.

Emelyanychev and the orchestra launch the season with a Grand Tour of Scotland, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 'Eroica' performed in seven different locations across the country, from Perth to Aberdeen and Craigmillar to Ayr, along with a new piece by SCO Associate Composer Jay Capperauld, The Origin of Colour, which tells a surrealist tale of the creation of colour on Earth. Emelyanychev returns to conclude the season with Mendelssohn's Elijah with Carolyn Sampson, Roderick Williams and the SCO Chorus, a performance that is also coming to the BBC Proms.

There is more Mendelssohn during the season as Emelyanychev conducts Benjamin Grosvenor in the Piano Concerto No. 1. He also conducts the orchestra's official 50th birthday concert, with Elena Langer's Suite: Figaro Gets a Divorce alongside music by Mozart and Haydn, and in March 2024 there is a celebration of The Auld Alliance with Berlioz' Rob Roy and Le mort de Cleopatre, with Karen Cargill, the premiere of James MacMillan's Composed in August, setting Robert Burns, and Maxwell Davies' Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise.

The MacMillan features the SCO Chorus, and the chorus will also be premiering Jay Capperauld’s The Night Watch, a setting of Niall Campbell’s poem, as part of their Christmas concert. The chorus will also be joining Richard Egarr and the orchestra for Bach's Mass in B Minor.

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto returns for typically eclectic programme mixing Respighi and Tarrodi with Vivaldi's The Four Season interspersed with Nordic folk tunes.  In another concert he directs music by Erkki-Sven Tüür and Rautavaara as well as the UK premieres of Helen Grime’s It Will Be Spring Soon and Anna Clyne’s violin concerto Time and Tides, which was written for him. And he is the soloist in Magnus Lindberg's Violin Concerto No. 1 in a programme conducted by Emelyanychev that includes music by Faure and Shostakovich.

Andrew Manze conducts a concert including Ravel's Piano Concerto with Steven Osborne and an all-RVW programme including the Concerto Grosso with young string players from the SCO Academy. Thomas Ades conducts a programme that moves from Haydn to Judith Weir, including new orchestral version of his own The Origin of the Harp. Ryan Bancroft conducts a programme that mixes Ives and Copland with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen's Dances for Orchestra.

The orchestra is introducing a series of Matinee concerts, three full-length programmes performed at 2pm, meaning audiences who prefer not to come out at night are still able to enjoy the orchestra’s work. Building on the SCO’s Reconnect programme for people with dementia, and developing the orchestra’s ongoing partnership with Alzheimer Scotland, the SCO presents three dementia-friendly concerts in the season. The performances are designed especially for people living with dementia, their friends and carers.

Children and families can experience the orchestra live in action in Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow with the world premiere of Jay Capperauld’s The Great Grumpy Gaboon, a new musical adventure written in collaboration with children’s author and illustrator Corrina Campbell and inspired by the SCO’s very own musicians. 

The SCO’s community residency in Greater Craigmillar, Edinburgh, enters the half-way point of its five-year programme later this year. Their most substantial community project to date with cross-artform workshops and performances for children, young people, families and adults to explore their musical potential and help celebrate their creativity. So far, a regular programme of seven music and cross-arts projects have been delivered each year, with 232 workshops, 375 people involved in the regular programme, and over 700 people attending SCO performances.

Full details from the SCO website.

Back on the road: Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Summer tour visiting 30 towns and cities across Scotland

After a two-year break, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is going back on tour round Scotland, visiting 30 towns and cities between 9 June and 14 September 2022, presenting a mixture of orchestral concerts, chamber concerts, family events, education and community projects. The tour opens in Inverness (9/6/2022) and Drumnadrochit (10/6/2022) when the orchestra's principal flautist, André Cebrián directs his chamber version of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 alongside music by Lutoslawski and Ligeti,

Then other events include Greg Batsleer and the SCO Chorus in six centuries of choral music culminating in a new work by Anna Clyne (SCO Associate Composer), the SCO leader, Stephanie Gonley, directing a programme of Elgar, Schubert, and American composers Arthur Foote (1853-1937) and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004), and the SCO Wind Soloists in a wide ranging programme.

The orchestra's former principal bassoon, Peter Whelan returns to conduct Haydn, CPE Bach and Beethoven, whilst current principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev will be directing programmes including Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 2, and Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major. Other conductors include Catherine Larsen-Maguire from the UK and Kristiina Poska from Estonia.

The education and creative learning activities include school workshops, and events for under 10s as well as chamber concerts for young people from SCO Wind Soloists, plus a come-and-play for amateur musicians to play core orchestral repertoire alongside SCO musicians. 

Full details from the SCO website.

New music and fireworks: Maxim Emelyanychev and Scottish Chamber Orchestra announce concerts for January to May 2022

Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Maxim Emelyanychev (Photo Ryan Buchanan)

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) has announced the remainder of its 2021/22 season with an array of concerts and online events for January to May 2022 with concerts in Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Inverness, Aberdeen and Perth.

Chief conductor Maxim Emelyanychev conducts five programmes, as well as performing Schubert's Trout Quintet with SCO principals. Emelyanychev's concerts range from collaborations with cellist Steven Isserlis and with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor to an all-Mozart programme with Emelyanychev directing Piano Concerto No. 20 from the keyboard. Stravinsky features twice, with Pulcinella given as part of the SCO's digital season, and The Firebird Suite in a concert which also features Alina Ibragimova in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1.  Emelyanychev conducts an Easter performance of Handel's Messiah with Anna Dennis, Xavier Sabata, Andrew Staples and Matthew Brook and the SCO Chorus (the first time chorus and orchestra will have performed together for two years). 

The SCO Chorus also features in Andrew Manze's concert with the orchestra, A Very British Adventure which includes RVW's Flos Campi with Timothy Ridout (viola), Britten's Lachrymae, Grace Williams' Sea Sketches and the world premiere of Anna Clyne's The Years. This latter is an SCO commission as part her role as SCO Associate Composer. Clyne has also been working with three emerging composers, Electra Perivolaris, Gillian Walker and Georgina MacDonell Finlayson and each has written a new work inspired by the art of storytelling and these three will be premiered as part of SCO's digital season.

Pekka Kuusisto has a three concert residency, directing three concerts from the violin including two American programmes, one with the SCO Chamber Ensemble featuring music by Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and Steve Reich, and another including the UK premiere of Nico Muhly's Violin Concerto alongside music by Missy Mazzoli, Stravinsky, Copland and Barber. Kuusisto's third concert features the world premiere of Karine Polwart and Pippa Murphy's Seek the Light, an SCO Commission. Other new music in the season includes the world premiere of Laurent Petitgirard's oboe concerto Souen Wou K'ong performed by oboist Francois Leleux, for whom it was written.

Lorenza Borrani joins the orchestra for the first time, directing a concert from the violin that pairs the music of Haydn with that of Bruno Maderna (1920-1973).

The SCO's digital season includes a Mendelssohn weekend in May with Kristian Bezuidenhout and Nicola Benedetti including the Violin Concerto and Octet.

The orchestra is also continuing its five-year intergenerational community residency in the Greater Craigmillar area of Edinburgh with projects with everyone from nursery school pupils to people living with dementia. Beyond the project, the orchestra's Creative Learning programme provides inclusive and accessible creative workshops and performances in schools, hospitals and community venues across Scotland and online.

Full details from the SCO website.

Applications now open for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and St Mary's Music School's new SCO Youth Academy

Having successfully created the SCO String Academy and SCO Wind Academy, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is once again partnering with St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh for the SCO Youth Academy, a new, high quality orchestra for young musicians which will offer school-aged young musicians the opportunity to work with top professionals over a series of Sunday afternoon sessions in the centre of Edinburgh. Designed to complement existing provision, it aims to enhance musical learning in a welcoming environment.

The orchestra will be conducted by SCO violinist Gordon Bragg and tutored by SCO musicians. It will be open to spiring secondary school-aged orchestral musicians who have reached Grade 6+ for strings and timpani and percussion, Grade 7+ for winds and brass and who are able to commit to a series of five sessions. Repertoire for this course is Sibelius' Finlandia and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade movements 1 and 3 and places will be allocated following submission of a successful video audition. The first session is scheduled to take place on 1 November 2020, with SCO String and Wind Academies planned for February to March 2021.

St Mary's Music School was started in 1880 as the Song School of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, to educate the choristers of the newly built St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh. The school started to expand in the early 1970s to create a Scottish school modelled on the Yehudi Menuhin School in England.

Applications are now open, see the SCO website for details; applications will be emailed full instructions about how to send their audition video.