SCO highlights to suit all tastes

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: SCO

The SCO March highlights include Richard Egarr directing CL@SIX: Baroque Masters and a concert of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn, the Scottish pianist Steven Osborne playing Mozart, Karen Cargill singing Wagner’s love songs and the release of the SCO’s latest Mozart Symphonies disc with Sir Charles Mackerras

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s hour-long, early evening CL@SIX series at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church in Edinburgh will conclude for the season on Tuesday 2 March at 6pm with Baroque Masters.

Returning to the SCO for the first time since 2008, Richard Egarr will direct four concertos from the keyboard, including Handel’s Organ Concerto in F The Cuckoo and the Nightingale and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3.

Later in the week, Egarr will also direct Mozart’s Symphony No 1 and Beethoven’s Symphony No 8, revealing the transformation of the symphony across two generations (4 and 5 March in Edinburgh and Glasgow).

Renowned Scottish pianist Steven Osborne joins the SCO for Mozart’s Piano Concerto in B-flat K595 in a programme which also includes Prokofiev’s Symphony No 1 ‘Classical’ and Haydn’s Symphony No 92 ‘Oxford’. Okko Kamu, returning to the Orchestra, conducts the concerts which take place on 19 and 20 March in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

SCO Principal Guest Conductor Olari Elts conducts works by three of the great Romantic composers as part of Schumann 200 – a short series celebrating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Schumann wrote the outline of his Symphony No 1 Spring in just four days in January 1841, and completed it not long after. It is noticeably full of energy and merriment, and he wanted it to capture the excitement and relief of the end of winter.

Karen Cargill, SCO’s featured soloist for the 09/10 Season, sings Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder in her final performances with the Orchestra this season. Concerts take place on 24 – 26 March in St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Audiences in Edinburgh and Glasgow will have the opportunity to hear Dr Fiona Elliott give a cultural perspective of Schumann and his time at pre-concert talks (free to ticket holders) at 6.30 pm.

March also sees the release of the SCO’s latest Mozart Symphonies CD with Sir Charles Mackerras. The double disc features Symphonies 29, 31 Paris, 32, 35 Haffner & 36 Linz and is a follow-up to the multi-award winning Mozart Symphonies 38-41, also released on Linn Records.