Concert Season 2024 - 2025
With Thanks to our Sponsors
Conductor - Neil Mantle MBE
Note: All evening concerts commence at 7:30pm
in St Cuthbert's Church, Lothian Road
Tickets for all concerts are available from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Sunday 11th May 2025 at 7:30pm
The Lark Ascending
Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme (‘Enigma’)
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
violin soloist: Richard Gratwick
Finzi: Dies Natalis
soloist: Christian Schneeberger (tenor)
Britten: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell
To close our season, we feature the music of these shores, including two 'Classic FM top twenty' favourites: Vaughan Williams’ eloquent depiction of the lazy motion of a lark in flight, in which we feature our superb leader Richard Gratwick, and Elgar’s well loved ‘Enigma’ Variations, in which he immortalised his friends in delighted miniatures - including, of course - "Nimrod", which was a key factor in spreading this wonderful work worldwide.
Another - very different - set of variations unites the 17th and 20th centuries in the form of the theme of Henry Purcell with the imaginative thematic transformations by Benjamin Britten. A splendid opportunity for each and every section of your wonderful orchestra to demonstrate their virtuosity!
We look forward to welcoming you to this exciting and varied season of concerts!
Tickets, price price £17.00 (concessions: £15.00; Student: £8.00; accompanied schoolchildren: free), are available from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Concert Season 2025 - 2026
Sunday 31st August 2025 at 7:30pm
Ireland, Bliss and Rachmaninoff
Ireland: The Forgotten Rite
Bliss: A Colour Symphony
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor
soloist: Geoffrey Duce
A warm welcome to our 2025-2026 season! We continue our
highly successful Rachmaninoff series with his epic third concerto—one
of the most technically demanding works in the entire piano repertoire.
Edinburgh native virtuoso Geoffrey Duce is now resident in the USA, where
he is professor in the piano faculty at Illinois State University. We
are delighted to be welcoming him back to perform this titanic
masterpiece with us!
The music of our shores has always been strongly
represented in Scottish Sinfonia’s concerts, and on this occasion we
commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Master of The
Queen’s Music, Sir Arthur Bliss. The Colour Symphony was commissioned
by Elgar, no less, for the 1922 Three Choirs Festival. It was inspired
by a book on Heraldry where the symbolic meanings are associated with
various colours: purple, red, blue and green. It is a work rich in melody
and poetry and we offer you a rare opportunity to hear it.
Tickets, price price £17.00 (concessions: £15.00; Student: £8.00; accompanied schoolchildren: free), are available now from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Sunday 23rd November 2025 at 7:30pm
Brahms, Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss
Brahms: Violin Concerto
soloist: Emily Bell
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben
Johann Strauss: Die Libelle, Künstler Quadrille, Unter Donner und Blitz
In May of 2022, the sixteen year old Emily Bell made her debut with us in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
Such was the impact of her interpretation that an immediate return invitation was made. On this occasion the beautiful
Brahms Concerto—written expressly for his great friend Joseph Joachim—is to be featured.
Sinfonia will be at its fullest strength of over one hundred players for our performance
of Strauss’s mighty self-portrait, Ein Heldenleben [A Hero’s Life]. It is an exciting and very colourful work
which demands to be heard live to experience the fullest impact.
As if all this were not enough, we conclude our concert with three Johann Strauss "bonbons", including
the magnificent "Thunder and Lightning Polka". We guarantee you’ll be positively skipping home!
Tickets, price price £17.00 (concessions: £15.00; Student: £8.00; accompanied schoolchildren: free), are available now from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Sunday 1st February 2026 at 7:30pm
Wagner and Tchaikovsky
Wagner: Suite from ‘The Mastersingers’
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder
soloist: Natasha Day
Tchaikovsky: Tatyana’s Letter Scene from ‘Eugene Onegin’
soloist: Natasha Day
Tchaikovsky: Symphony no 3 in D major ‘Polish’
We welcome in 2026 with excerpts from two very different but equally well-loved operas: Wagner’s most serenely lyrical and warm hearted work: "The Mastersingers", and Tchaikovsky’s story—based on Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin. The so-called Letter Scene, where Tatyana expresses her feelings for the hero of the opera, is the most celebrated passage in the opera. Natasha Day has appeared with Scottish Sinfonia on several occasions, as soloist in Strauss Four Last Songs, Mahler Symphony No 4, and Mozart Exsultate Jubilate. Natasha, who was awarded a scholarship to study at The Royal College of Music, where she graduated with first class honours, is a prize winner in competitions in Warsaw, Poland and Prague. She is also a past Britten-Pears Young Artist. We are delighted to welcome back this fine artist to perform with us.
Tickets, price price £17.00 (concessions: £15.00; Student: £8.00; accompanied schoolchildren: free), are available now from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Sunday 3rd May 2026 at 7:30pm
Berlioz, Debussy, Faure and Saint-Saëns
Berlioz: Overture: Le Carnaval Romain
Fauré: Incidental Music: ‘Caligula’
with Linlithgow Ladies Choir, director Kirsty Ball
Debussy: Dances - Danse sacrée et Danse profane
soloist: Helen Thompson (harp) Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ Symphony’
We conclude this, our 55th season, with a French evening. The concert opens with Berlioz’s most brightly coloured overture: The Roman Carnival. The pace then relaxes to provide you with an opportunity to hear little-known works by Fauré and Debussy. For the latter, we feature our principal harpist, Helen Thompson, in this hypnotic and typically sensual work. The crowning glory concluding this performance, and bringing our season to a roof-raising conclusion, is Saint-Saëns' thrilling Organ Symphony. St. Cuthbert’s boasts a magnificent four-manual JW Walker organ which has the necessary power and range to counterbalance and even compete with the large orchestral forces in this epic work. We look forward greatly to welcoming you—either as a long standing loyal patron or as a new audience member—to join us in our exciting series of live performances!
Tickets, price price £17.00 (concessions: £15.00; Student: £8.00; accompanied schoolchildren: free), are available now from the Usher Hall Box Office.
Future dates and programme details will be announced here as they become available.
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