Preview: 2026-27 RSNO Season at the Usher Hall
Preview of the 2026-27 RSNO Season at the Usher Hall
The Chief Executive and the Chairman of the RSNO were both excited to announce the coming season at a public event last week at the Usher Hall. A similar event took place in Glasgow and I must say that I endorse their enthusiasm, as the programme looks very interesting and contains many outstanding concerts.
We at EMR have already received some comments about the straggling nature of the programme with large bare periods featuring no classical concerts, but I’m afraid that sadly reflects the nature of public subsidy of the Arts in Britain today, and there is nothing that can improve that, except continuous lobbying of government by interested parties. I’ll address this aspect of the season later on, but I want to start on a really positive note now. I have attended most of the RSNO’s classical concerts this season and look forward to the coming weeks with keen anticipation. The standard the orchestra is producing week in, week out is exceptional, and I can say without a shadow of doubt that the RSNO is now one of the finest orchestras in the UK, led brilliantly by its Music Director, Thomas Søndergård, and headed administratively by its Chief Executive, Alistair Mackie. The fact that Mr Mackie is a professional trumpet player himself is perhaps the icing on the cake of the administration. No faceless bureaucrat he, but an artist in his own right, and that makes a huge difference to any musical organisation. During my long career as an opera singer, the best administrator I came across was Bernard Foccroulle, the magnificent Belgian organist who for many years was the Head of the Théâtre de la Monnaie (the Brussels opera house) and then director of the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. His knowledge and understanding of musicians was outstanding, and this led to a great collaboration of artists and management to the advantage of everyone in Brussels and Aix. I believe that Alistair Mackie has a similar empathy with the musicians of the RSNO, even playing as a stand-in at one concert early this season, and this can only be a good thing. Clearly he also has a fine business brain too, but this feeling as an artist himself is invaluable.
So, to the programme. We start and end with Mahler, which is exciting. Kicking off on September 18th with the 6th Symphony, paired with Rachmaninov’s 4th Piano Concerto, played by Alexander Malofeev, this is a chance to hear one of Mahler’s least known symphonies, conducted by Thomas Søndergård. It is an enigmatic piece, premiered in 1906, started in a bright period of Mahler’s life, but completed after some traumatic events. The dramatic hammer blows of the last movement, supposedly representing the hammer blows of Fate, give the whole piece a darker quality, but it is certainly a truly personal and revelatory work, and I can’t wait to hear it.
At the other end of the season, on Friday 21st May 2027, conductor and orchestra will perform Mahler’s 3rd Symphony, an extraordinary follow-up to the glorious 2nd, and a work into which the composer threw his whole being, heart and soul. The RSNO Chorus and the RSNO Youth Chorus will be joined by the wonderful Scottish mezzo-soprano, Beth Taylor, in an all-encompassing performance of the highest quality. As a student 50 years ago, I was drawn to the music of Wagner, Strauss, Bruckner and Mahler. Sadly, Bruckner’s light shines less brightly these days (he will come again – huge thanks to the RSNO for playing his 8th Symphony this season), but Mahler continues to fascinate listeners with his extraordinary music, and the chance to hear two of his symphonies in one season is wonderful.
Mention of Beth Taylor, allows me to draw your attention to next year’s artist in residence. I first met Beth in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Glasgow Cathedral in autumn 2019, when we were alto and bass soloists. Even then, not long out of college, it was clear that this was a major star for the future, and it has been my pleasure and privilege to assist her in her development into the global superstar that she is becoming. Sharing concert platforms together, joining for a CD, ‘Songs of Edinburgh’ with words by Sir Alexander McColl Smith and music by Tom Cunningham, and becoming good friends with her and her husband, the fine Scottish baritone, Jonathan Kennedy, I am delighted that Beth has been chosen as Artist in Residence. Singing La Mort de Cléopâtre by Berlioz on 7th May, performing a recital in Glasgow with Marcia Hadjimarkos on 16th May, and Mahler 3 on the 21st May, we in Scotland will be able to hear a singer who I confidently predict will be one of Scotland’s greatest ever lyric artists. Before next season begins, can I draw your attention to a concert of operatic highlights during the Edinburgh Festival, in the new Town Church on George Street on Friday August 14th at 2.30pm. I will be putting on this concert, and as well as myself, soprano Catherine Hooper and tenor Magnus Walker, I have engaged Beth and her husband Jonathan to join us in a programme of French opera, which I also confidently predict will be magnificent! The brilliant Scottish/Polish pianist, Michał Gajzler, will be our fabulous accompanist. Please come along!
Another highlight of next season for me is the Verdi Requiem, to be performed on Friday 6th November, conducted by Patrick Hahn. The quartet of soloists needs to be of absolutely top quality in a piece which is extremely operatic in style. The Irish soprano, Jennifer Davis, is known to me. Since I worked with her at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, about 10 years ago, when she was a Young Artist there, she has built a fine reputation mainly in Europe, particularly as Elsa in Wagner’s ‘Lohengrin’. It looks like Patrick Hahn, the RSNO Principal Guest Conductor, has chosen his quartet from singers he knows in Continental Europe, as they are, apart from Ms Davis, unknown to me. The Verdi Requiem has a particular resonance for many Scottish concert goers, since, in the 1970s and 80s at the Edinburgh Festival, we were privileged to hear the work conducted by two of the greatest Verdi conductors of all time, Carlo Maria Giulini and Claudio Abbado, with superstar soloists including Margaret Price, Jessye Norman, Fiorenza Cossoto, Martina Arroyo, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Ruggiero Raimondi. Now we are not expecting such starry excellence next season, but the Verdi Requiem is always a great event. I have sung the bass solo on many occasions throughout Britain and Europe, and each concert has been memorable. I’m sure the 6th of November will be no less thrilling!
As well as two Mahler symphonies, the RSNO will be performing two Shostakovich symphonies next season, and this will be an opportunity to hear live the music of arguably the finest composer of the second half of the 20th century. His struggles with the Communist hierarchy in Soviet Russia after the horrors of the Nazi onslaught in the 1940s made his music an artistic microcosm of the sufferings and triumphs of that fateful century, and Symphony No 5 on the 2nd October and Symphony No 7 on the 30th October will be highlights of the autumn.
In the Spring, we will be whisked along to the Ballet on consecutive weeks as our Music Director conducts Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé’ on 16th April and our Principal Guest Conductor will play Stravinsky’s electrifying ‘Rite of Spring’ a week later. Both these concerts have fascinating accompanying pieces, the Ravel paired with Szymanowski’s 4th Symphony and the Stravinsky partnered by the UK premiere of David Fennessy’s Electric Guitar Concerto with Sean Shibe as soloist.
Since I am a singer as well as a reviewer, I am naturally drawn to choral concerts, and they don’t come any more exciting than Carl Orff’s wonderful ‘Carmina Burana’ on 12th March, conducted by Sir James MacMillan. As well as the famous Orff piece, Sir James will conduct a performance of his own ‘Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia’ in a Scottish premiere with the RSNO Chorus and the RSNO Youth Chorus.
Finally, in this selection, Thomas Søndergård, on 19th February, will be playing perhaps the most famous symphony of them all, Beethoven’s 5th. DA DA DA DAAA! If you’ve never heard it live, you’re in for a marvellous treat. If you’ve heard it a thousand times before, come along and pretend you’ve never heard it. It will be a revelation!
Finally, in response to a few messages to the EMR about the great gaps in the season, it is important to realise that, in 2026/27, no-one can expect that central government, whether in Holyrood or Westminster, will come rushing forward to subsidise the arts, especially the so-called elitist classical arts. However wrong and short-sighted this may be, it is sadly a fact of modern life. Even in the benign world of continental Europe, the arts are under threat from the philistines, and orchestras are forced to find other ways of balancing the books. In Scotland, the RSNO has brilliantly reinvented itself as a recording orchestra par excellence, and many film scores and TV series feature our national orchestra, bringing in funds to pay for the splendid season I am previewing here. This, and the necessary touring and crossover concerts, means that for several weeks of the season, the orchestra is physically not here or not available to play in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the other Scottish venues. However much we may disapprove, there is actually no way out, and we must be grateful to the RSNO that we can hear as many fine concerts as we do.
Have a look at the programme for next season online and note that it is very much cheaper to buy a few tickets as a bunch than individually per concert. The website makes the offers very clear and I would very much suggest that you take up the offers. I’ll do my best each week to describe what I have heard, and it will be even better if you are there, to see if you agree with me.
I’ll be at the Usher Hall on April 24th for the next concert of this season.
