BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2024/25 season is its third with chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth. Wigglesworth will be directing Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and a new work by Helen Grime, along with playing the solo part in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17. There will be a further premiere from Ricardo Ferro, plus works by Donghoon Shin, Errollyn Wallen, Gabriela Montero and the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association Hans Abrahamsen.
Ilan Volkov conducts percussion concertos with Scottish virtuoso Colin Currie, including a UK premiere by Olga Neuwirth and a concerto by Andy Aiko. Other visitors include tabla player Zakir Hussain who performs his Triple Concerto with conductor Alpesh Chauhan, and the orchestra’s former Artist-in-Association Matthias Pintscher returns to conduct Rachmaninov’s less frequently performed Piano Concerto No.4 with Denis Kozhukhin plus his own work Neharot and a world premiere by his student Ricardo Ferro.
Young people are very much to the fore. The orchestra has announced that during its current season young audiences have hit new heights, with Under 26s and Students making up 1 in 4 audience members across the Thursday Night Series, reaching up to 34% of ticket sales. As part of Sir James MacMillan’s first Scottish performance of his new Concerto for Orchestra ‘Ghosts’, he conducts a substantial spread of new music from six of his younger colleagues at the Cumnock Tryst festival – Matthew Grouse, Gillian Walker, Electra Perivolaris, Scott Lygate, Jay Capperauld and Michael Murray. And BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists will be showcased in the orchestra’s new Sunday concerts as part of Glasgow’s Afternoon Performances season.
As part of Nordic Music Days 2024 (hosted in Scotland for the first time since its inaugural festival in 1888), Emilia Hoving conducts the orchestra in music by Britta Byström, Eli Tausen á Lava and Maja Ratkje, plus Hildur Guðnadóttir’s The Fact of the Matter with University of Glasgow Chapel Choir.
Full details from the BBC SSO’s website.
