THE SCOTTISH ORCHESTRAS PERTH CONCERT SERIES 2015−16

KIDS GO FREE!PERTH CONCERT HALL BOX OFFICE: 01738 621031 WWW.HORSECROSS.CO.UK

The Scottish Orchestras’ Perth Concert Season returns for 2015/16, just as the Perth Concert Hall marks its tenth anniversary. It is the only platform dedicated to showcasing Scotland’s three leading orchestras; the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

This season there is pulse-racing romance in the form of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, headlong energy and radiant joy in Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ and ‘Pastoral’ Symphonies, and the drama of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’. Nordic magic comes in the form of an evening dedicated to Sibelius with the composer’s Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, old-fashioned fairy tale glitter in the shape of Prokofiev’s ballet music for Cinderella, and there are popular favourites from Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Mahler.

Scotland’s foremost Wagnerian, Karen Cargill, brings her unique warmth and glorious voice to the composer’s Wesendonck songs, Nikolai Lugansky and Boris Giltburg will surely dazzle at the keyboard while Vadim Repin and Tedi Papavrami will send sparks flying with the MacMillan and Sibelius Violin Concertos. And with conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Emmanuel Krivine and Alexander Lazarev at the helm, Perth audiences are once again in line for a series of world-class musical experiences.

We continue to be immensely proud of our distinguished collaboration and of our collective contribution to the concert season in Perth. We hope that you’ll join us for what promises to be another fabulous season.

PRE-CONCERT TALKS in the Norie-Miller Studio

Once again we are delighted to stage pre-concert talks as part of the Scottish Orchestras season. These take place at 6.45pm in the Norie-Miller Studio and are free to ticket holders. Please note that seating is on a first-come first-served basis and capacity is limited.

FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER 2015, 7.30PM BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

SIBELIUS Symphony No.5 SIBELIUS Symphony No.6 SIBELIUS Symphony No.7

THOMAS DAUSGAARD Conductor

“Other composers mix brightly-coloured cocktails” said Jean Sibelius. “I offer pure, cool water”. From the radiant sunrise that opens the Fifth to the deep tranquillity of the Sixth and the windswept peaks of the Seventh, Sibelius’s last three Symphonies are like a force of nature. For the BBC SSO’s Chief Conductor-Designate, Thomas Dausgaard, this is music that can transform the very way you hear the world; “at once monumental and intimately personal” is how one critic described his approach to Sibelius. Under Dausgaard’s direction, this single-evening Sibelius trilogy will be an exhilarating journey through one of the 20th century’s greatest – and most inspiring – musical minds. An unmissable start to the Series!

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM Thomas Dausgaard discusses Sibelius (free to ticket holders)

02 WELCOME

03 SIBELIUS 5, 6 & 7

QUILTER CHEVIOT PRESENTS:

THURSDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2016, 7.30PM Royal Scottish National Orchestra

TCHAIKOVSKY Capriccio Italien RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No.2 MAHLER Adagietto from Symphony No.5 R. STRAUSS Suite from ‘Der Rosenkavalier’

JEAN-CLAUDE PICARD Conductor BORIS GILTBURG Piano

Rachmaninov’s Second is surely the world’s most romantic piano concerto – and with soloist Boris Giltburg, it’s the passionate heart of a Valentine’s concert that’s much more than just a brief encounter. Gustav Mahler sends a tender love-letter to his beautiful young wife; under the blue skies of Italy, Tchaikovsky dreams of dark eyes and scented nights; and in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, a silver rose is the key to love at first sight. If music is the food of love, then this is a Michelin-starred banquet!

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM Manus Carey (RSNO Executive Producer) in conversation with Jean-Claude Picard (free to ticket holders)

WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER, 7.30PM Scottish Chamber Orchestra

BRAHMS Variations on a theme of Joseph Haydn WAGNER Wesendonck Lieder WAGNER Siegfried Idyll SCHUBERT Symphony No.8 ‘Unfinished’

EMMANUEL KRIVINE Conductor KAREN CARGILL Mezzo-Soprano

Famed for the elegance and energy of his colourful performances, SCO Principal Guest Conductor Emmanuel Krivine directs the SCO in a powerful programme of richly Romantic music. Wagner’s touchingly tuneful Siegfried Idyll was written as a surprise birthday present for his wife Cosima, and renowned Scottish Mezzo-Soprano Karen Cargill joins the SCO for the same composer’s intensely expressive Wesendonck Lieder. Krivine opens the programme with the infectious jollity of Brahms’s gloriously melodious ‘St Anthony’ Variations, and closes with the high drama of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony.

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM Elaine Kelly from the University of Edinburgh provides insights into the works being performed (free to ticket holders)

05 RACHMANINOV’S SECOND PIANO CONCERTO

04AN EVENING WITH EMMANUEL KRIVINE

THURSDAY 14 APRIL, 7.30PM Royal Scottish National Orchestra

RACHMANINOV Caprice bohémien PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No.4 (for the Left Hand) PROKOFIEV Suite from ‘Cinderella’

ALEXANDER LAZAREV Conductor NIKOLAI LUGANSKY Piano

Join the RSNO as it celebrates its 125th Anniversary with two contrasting pieces from its ‘birthday’ composer Prokofiev, who was born in the same year the Orchestra was founded. Glass slippers, ugly sisters and fairy godmothers…Cinderella was a natural subject for a musical storyteller like Sergei Prokofiev, and if you love Romeo and Juliet, you’ll be enchanted by this, his most magical ballet score. The RSNO’s Bolshoi-trained Conductor Emeritus Alexander Lazarev brings out the gypsy in Rachmaninov, and Nikolai Lugansky shares Prokofiev’s rarely-heard Fourth Concerto. It’s insanely difficult, but don’t worry: Lugansky could play it with one hand behind his back!

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM Ursula Heidecker Allen (RSNO Violin) (free to ticket holders)

FRIDAY 4 MARCH, 7.30PM BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

DEBUSSY Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune JAMES MACMILLAN Violin Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No.6 ‘Pastoral’

DONALD RUNNICLES Conductor VADIM REPIN Violin

James MacMillan dedicated his Violin Concerto to the memory of his mother and, as one critic put it, this is a work “so full of ideas that you might wonder if he couldn’t have written two concertos”. In the hands of its dedicatee, Vadim Repin, it’s an arresting companion-piece for Beethoven’s much-loved (and deceptively relaxed) ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, and the quiet revolution of Debussy’s sensuous Prélude; works chosen by Donald Runnicles both to complement, and to strike sparks off each other.

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM Vadim Repin in conversation (free to ticket holders)

07 LAZAREV CONDUCTS ‘CINDERELLA’

06 RUNNICLES CONDUCTS THE ‘PASTORAL’ SYMPHONY

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Rows A-D only availablefor SCO concerts

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PROUDLY SPONSORED BY QUILTER CHEVIOT

08 EMMANUEL KRIVINE CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN’S ‘EROICA’

09 SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE 25% WHEN YOU BOOK ALL SIX CONCERTS!

Subscribing to the Perth Concert Series is easy and means that you will:

— SAVE 25%

— AVOID QUEUES AND SECURE THE SEATS YOU WANT THROUGHOUT THE SERIES

— PLAN YOUR PERTH CONCERT-GOING IN ONE EASY BOOKING!

— SPREAD THE COST OF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION OVER FIVE MONTHS AT NO EXTRA COST

Contact the Box Office to book.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICES FOR ALL 6 CONCERTS

Area A : £112.50 Area B : £99.00 Area C : £87.72 Area D : £72.00 Area E : £51.72

Priority subscription booking runs until Fri 26 June 2015. The Perth Concert Hall 10th Anniversary and New Year in Vienna concerts are not available in this package.

SINGLE TICKETS

Area A : £25.00 Area B : £22.00 Area C : £19.50 Area D : £16.00 Area E : £11.50

Single Tickets are available from Mon 29 June 2015.

Please note that for concerts by the BBC SSO and the RSNO, rows A-D in the orchestra Stalls are not available because of a stage extension. Tickets are non-refundable.

WEDNESDAY 11 MAY, 7.30PM Scottish Chamber Orchestra

MUSSORGSKY Khovantchina Prelude: ‘Dawn on the Moskva River’ SIBELIUS Violin Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’

EMMANUEL KRIVINE Conductor TEDI PAPAVRAMI Violin

Respected equally for the power and the poetry of his searing performances, exceptional Albanian violinist Tedi Papavrami joins the SCO for one of the most evocative works in the violin repertoire, Sibelius’s compelling Violin Concerto. Principal Guest Conductor Emmanuel Krivine opens the concert with Mussorgsky’s atmospheric Khovantchina Prelude and closes with Beethoven at his most heroic in the noble passions of the great ‘Eroica’ Symphony.

PRE-CONCERT TALK: 6.45PM SCO Chief Executive Roy McEwan shares his thoughts on Sibelius (free to ticket holders)

11 PERTH CONCERT HALL 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

NEW YEAR IN VIENNACOLLECTION IN AID OF MARIE CURIE

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FRIDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2015, 7.30PM BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

SIBELIUS Finlandia HAYDN Trumpet Concerto RACHMANINOV Symphony No.2

EIVIND AADLAND Conductor ALISON BALSOM Trumpet

In its 10 year life Perth Concert Hall has welcomed many of today’s most exciting classical artists. None is more celebrated than world-leading trumpeter Alison Balsom, a three-time winner at the Classic Brits and a truly charismatic virtuoso. She returns to Perth for the fourth time in a truly irresistible programme with the brilliant BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra which opens with Sibelius’s stirring hymn to Finnish nationalism and closes with perhaps the most romantic symphony of all…

TICKETS: £31 (£29 conc), £27 (£25 conc), £19 (£17 conc), Under 26/Students: £5 + £1.50 Booking fee per ticket, excluding cash payments.

SUNDAY 3 JANUARY 2016, 3PM Scottish Chamber Orchestra

BRAHMS Hungarian Dance No.1 in G minor ROSSINI Overture: ‘The Thieving Magpie’ MASSENET Meditation from ‘Thaïs’ C.SCHUMANN (ARR. SWENSEN) Three Romances GRIEG Morning (from Peer Gynt Suite) DVORÁK Slavonic Dance No.1 and your favourite Viennese waltzes and polkas

JOSEPH SWENSEN Director/Violin

Is there any finer way to greet the New Year than with a sparkling, traditional Viennese gala concert? Join the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for beautiful violin playing and irresistible Strauss Waltzes and Polkas – from the Blue Danube and the Tritsch-Tratsch to the Pizzicato and Thunder and Lightning Polkas.This is music to brighten up the darkest days and send you off with a spring in your step.

TICKETS: £25, £22, £19.50, £16, £11.50, Under 26/Students: £5, + £1.50 Booking fee per ticket, excluding cash payments.

Please note that these concerts are not available as part of the Perth Concert Series subscription package.

IN PERSON Perth Concert Hall Box Office Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ 10am-6pm Monday-Saturday All major credit cards accepted (Excluding AMEX and Diners Club)

BY POST Perth Concert Hall Box Office Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ

TICKET CONCESSIONS KIDS GO FREE! Children aged 16 and under go free to all Perth Concert Series concerts. Children must be accompanied by a paying adult. Maximum of two free children’s tickets per adult. Additional children £5 each.

STUDENTS £5 for people who are in full-time education. Appropriate identification may be requested.

SCHOOL PARTIES One free adult ticket with every 10 school pupils (advance bookings only). Subject to availability.

PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY People with a disability and a carer are entitled to 50% off ticket prices. Available in advance.

BOX OFFICE CHARGES All subscriptions, excluding cash payments, are subject to a £1.50 box office fee. All single ticket purchases are subject to a £1.50 box office fee per ticket, excluding cash payments. If you would like your tickets posted there will be a 65p charge. Booking fee applies to the first 5 tickets of a single event – please contact Box Office if your booking exceeds 5 tickets.

10HOW TO BOOK

BY PHONE01738 621031 ONLINE HORSECROSS.CO.UK (N.B. subscriptions cannot be booked online)

RSNO Scottish Charity No SC010702 & SCO Scottish Charity No SC015039. The Perth Concert Series has been made possible with generous financial support from The Gannochy Trust and Perth and Kinross Council. The SCO and RSNO receive funding from the Scottish Government. Concerts by the BBC SSO are scheduled to be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The information carried in this brochure was correct at the time of publishing. The Scottish Orchestras reserve the right to amend artists and programmes for any of the listed concerts if necessary.