Perth is set to resonate with the timeless beauty of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music this October and November. From the lyrical Ballet Music from Idomeneo to the immortal Requiem, the city's Perth Concert Hall will host a series of enchanting events. Notable highlights include the return of favorite WASO guest conductor Fabien Gabel and pianist Alexandra Dariescu's stunning performances. Join us as Perth honors one of history's greatest composers with concerts that promise to leave you spellbound.

Mozart's Masterpieces in Perth: A Celebration of Musical Brilliance

Get ready for a musical spectacle in Perth! From the harmonious duo of Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne performing Schubert piano duets, to Mark Padmore singing Britten accompanied by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the remarkable partnership of Steven Osborne and cellist Alban Gerhardt, this season promises to enchant. Each event is graced by the timeless compositions of Robert Schumann - making it a must-attend for classical music enthusiasts.

Musical Gems in Perth: Celebrating Schumann with Osborne, Lewis, and More

Sir Mark Elder is more than just one of the world’s most respected conductors; he’s an artist who lives every minute of the music. “He coaxed a gorgeous sound from the musicians of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra” wrote The Times in 2022. And it’s true - Elder has a lifetime’s understanding of what makes an orchestra glow. Under his direction, this sumptuous, gloriously tuneful selection from Tchaikovsky’s greatest ballet score would be a treat in itself, but with Elder there’s always a bigger picture and a colourful rarity by Sibelius is merely the upbeat to Prokofiev’s ferocious Second Piano Concerto. Music from a time of revolution, played by a pianist as fearless as Elder himself.

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Elder Conducts Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty

Glasgow City Hall

When night falls, so too does silence – and that’s when music can weave its darkest spells. In the middle of the 20th century, composers Benjamin Britten and Witold Lutosławski were kindred creative spirits, and each crafted ravishing, dream-haunted tapestries of song for a handful of instruments and the tenor voice of Peter Pears.

Perth Concert Series: Mark Padmore Sings Britten

Perth Concert Hall

When night falls, so too does silence – and that’s when music can weave its darkest spells. In the middle of the 20th century, composers Benjamin Britten and Witold Lutosławski were kindred creative spirits, and each crafted ravishing, dream-haunted tapestries of song for a handful of instruments and the tenor voice of Peter Pears. One of Britain’s greatest living tenors, Mark Padmore, assumes his mantle today, at the dark heart of this typically imaginative programme from Ryan Wigglesworth. Mozart opens the evening in a blaze of sunlight, and Schumann’s most personal symphony brings it to a close: strong emotions, spoken with love.

Mark Padmore Sings Britten

Britta Byström’s Voyages extraordinaires was inspired by the enchanting (and impossible) journeys depicted in Jules Verne’s famous novel series. Her own work is intended as a fantastical musical journey on which the listener encounters new worlds of sound through recurring orchestral transformations. So, bring a thirst for discovery to the 2024 Nordic Music Days festival – this year in Glasgow – which celebrates contemporary music and sounds from Scotland and the Nordic region.

Nordic Music Days 2024: An Extraordinary Voyage!

An all-night party, a northern sunrise – join us for a life-affirming celebration of music made in Scotland. Singers from across the Central Belt come together to perform modern sacred masterpieces by Sir James MacMillan, and Errollyn Wallen salutes her ancestors in a wordless song of survival and freedom. We raise a toast to the late Lyell Creswell - the irrepressible, utterly individual New Zealand composer who made Edinburgh his home, and whose extraordinary Third Piano Concerto receives its European premiere from Danny Driver. And then we’re off to Orkney, where Peter Maxwell Davies is keeping a welcome – no spoilers, but let’s just say that it gets lively…

Scottish Influences

Gabriela Montero is the virtuoso who broke the mould - the Venezuelan pianist whose irrepressible imagination and flair for improvisation has put creativity back into the heart of the classical piano repertoire. “For me, music is a purposeful art”, she says, and today she stars in her own, exuberant Latin Concerto: not, she says, “a naïve vision of a carnival continent“ but “a profoundly personal expression of the continent in which I was born”. Guest conductor Elim Chan frames it with classics old and new - Caroline Shaw’s 21st century tribute to the music of the classical era, and Brahms’s mighty final symphony: an old master singing, dancing and raging against the dying of the light.

Gabriela Montero's ‘Latin’ Piano Concerto in Edinburgh

The Usher Hall

Gabriela Montero's ‘Latin’ Piano Concerto

With their very first sounds, a composer creates a world. Mahler opens his Fifth Symphony with an ominous fanfare: the first step on a journey through midnight storms, leaping horn-calls, and possibly the most tender love-letter ever written without words, the rapturous Adagietto. British composer Helen Grime, meanwhile, has dived deep into the pages of Zoe Gilbert’s novel 'Folk', drawing on Scottish, Irish and Manx folklore – as well as the magic of a full symphony orchestra – to create an extraordinary new adventure for soprano Claire Booth, who gives the world premiere today. Fellow composer (and BBC SSO Chief Conductor) Ryan Wigglesworth brings both worlds to life: it’s a truly fantastic way to launch a new season.

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Mahler's Fifth Symphony in Aberdeen

Music Hall

With their very first sounds, a composer creates a world. Mahler opens his Fifth Symphony with an ominous fanfare: the first step on a journey through midnight storms, leaping horn-calls, and possibly the most tender love-letter ever written without words, the rapturous Adagietto. British composer Helen Grime, meanwhile, has dived deep into the pages of Zoe Gilbert’s novel 'Folk', drawing on Scottish, Irish and Manx folklore – as well as the magic of a full symphony orchestra – to create an extraordinary new adventure for soprano Claire Booth, who gives the world premiere today. Fellow composer (and BBC SSO Chief Conductor) Ryan Wigglesworth brings both worlds to life: it’s a truly fantastic way to launch a new season

Opening Night: Mahler's Fifth Symphony

We reunite with our Conductor Emeritus Sir Donald Runnicles, in celebration of his 70th birthday. Join the orchestra to experience the works of Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner – two late-Romantic musical titans – and to celebrate Runnicles’s position as the leading Scottish conductor of his generation.

EIF: Runnicles conducts Bruckner 9

In the summer of 1826 Felix Mendelssohn stumbled upon a German translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream made by August Wilhelm Schlegel. Spellbound, the 17-year-old composer wrote an orchestral overture for the play and, another 17 years later, augmented it with yet more scene-setting music – the most enchanting and characterful he would write. Gemma New joins the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for Mendelssohn’s musical retelling of Shakespeare’s story (see also Proms 24 & 68) – performed with readings from the play for dramatic context – after equally colourful musical storytelling from forgotten French late-Romantic composer Mel Bonis and the heavenly sounds of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

Prom 36: Gemma New conducts Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Royal Albert Hall

Ilan Volkov and friends celebrate milestones from the past 100 years of American jazz, starting with a sequence honouring the ‘Duke’. Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite from 1945 romps between boogie-woogie and dissonance in its response to astrological signs. The evening culminates in the work of a boundary-crossing visionary very much still with us. From the south side of Chicago, multi-instrumentalist and self-styled ‘trans-idiomatic composer’ Anthony Braxton has established himself as a musician whose imagination recognises no bounds.

Prom 35: Ellington, Braxton and Mary Lou Williams

The young Felix Mendelssohn transformed Johann Sebastian Bach’s majestic St Matthew Passion for modern orchestra. His groundbreaking performances of his impassioned arrangements in Berlin (1829) and Leipzig (1841 – the version heard in this concert) changed the course of music history. Without these, the great Bach revival might never have happened.

EIF Opening Concert: St Matthew Passion

Ryan Wigglesworth’s feast of English music opens with Britten’s suite of ‘best bits’ from his 1953 Coronation opera Gloriana, all about the fraught relationship between Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex. Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s new climate change-themed Cello Concerto – premiered last year in Glasgow by tonight’s forces – takes inspiration from three disparate aspects of the natural world. Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 is considered by many to be the best ever written in England. ‘I have put my soul into it,’ said the composer of this captivating journey, whose thrusting outward energy conceals deep inner poignancy.

Prom 10: Elgar’s Second Symphony

Both Gustav Mahler and Friedrich Rückert lost children. When Mahler came to set Rückert’s grief-stricken poems on the subject as his five Kindertotenlieder, he did so with music that appears emotionally stunned and radiantly consolatory. Leading international mezzo-soprano Alice Coote lends her glowing voice to these devastating songs, after Ryan Wigglesworth conducts his BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a symphony by Brahms that is both menacing and mellifluous. At the heart of the programme is Schoenberg’s sumptuous tone-poem Verklärte Nacht (‘Transfigured Night’), filled with crepuscular angst and decadent late-Romantic harmony.

Prom 9: Mahler, Brahms and Schoenberg

A pairing of epic works: Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto, one of the most important concertos of the 21st century, and Bruckner’s majestic Seventh Symphony

Aldeburgh Festival: Bruckner & Unsuk Chin

Snape Maltings

The BBC SSO return to Aldeburgh Festival for Britten’s Violin Concerto played by Daniel Pioro, the “heavenly” Mahler symphony which Britten so loved, and Judith Weir’s Forest with its fairytale character.

Aldeburgh Festival: Mahler, Britten & Weir

Join conducting talent from across the UK, Austria and Finland as they direct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a varied programme of works by Debussy, Gregson & Elgar. This concert, jointly presented by the BBC SSO and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is the culmination of a week’s activities with conductor Martyn Brabbins.

RCS & BBC SSO: Young Conductors Showcase

City Halls

Our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth closes the season with a spellbinding concert with our 2023/24 Featured Artist, the phenomenal Bomsori Kim.

Sibelius Violin Concerto in Aberdeen

Closing Night: Sibelius Violin Concerto

Big sounds and tender feelings. Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man is one of those pieces that you know without realising you know it – pure optimism from wartime America, wrought from great shining beams of brass and percussion. The young Chopin wasn’t short of confidence either, and his gloriously dreamy Second Piano Concerto has to be one of the most exquisite love letters ever penned by a young genius to his sweetheart. BBC Young Musician 2022 finalist Ethan Loch is the soloist this evening; his energy and imagination make him the perfect partner for guest conductor Michael Sanderling. Expect freshness, fire – and a few surprises too – when Sanderling conducts Dvořák’s much-loved symphony “from the New World”.

Dvořák’s New World Symphony in Edinburgh

Recorder player, improviser and sound-worker Yamada shares time and space with audiences, air becomes sound material by exploring, deepening and refining it using playing techniques developed by herself.

TECTONICS: Eiko Yamada

Grand Hall

Join us for Dvořák’s much-loved symphony “from the New World”. Plus BBC Young Musician 2022 finalist Ethan Loch joins conductor Michael Sanderling and the orchestra for Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2.

Dvořák’s New World Symphony

Ka Baird, a New York-based artist, presents an extended solo version of "Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos," blending theatricality, spirituality, and minimalism in a cosmic journey exploring life and death cycles

TECTONICS: Ka Baird

The Old Fruitmarket

Join BBC Radio 3 presenter Kate Molleson for insights into Day 1 of Tectonics, offering a chance to meet artists and explore their music performances.

TECTONICS: Meet The Artists - Day 2

Scottish Music Centre

Born in Belfast, composer Brian Irvine’s unique musical world combines the known and the unknown, the free and the fixed, the schooled and the unschooled. His music-making is “spontaneous and irresistibly alive” (Washington Post). And for Tectonics 2024, he’s assembled musicians of all ages, instruments and abilities to be part of the beautiful, monster, music machine phenomena that is THE IMAGINARY ORCHESTRA. The only prerequisite for participants? A sense of adventure! Come and hear what they’ve devised in just a few hours, guided by the musical lunacy of this maverick composer.

TECTONICS: Brian Irvine & The Imaginary Orchestra

**This performance in the Recital Room will have performances throughout the weekend. Due to limited capacity, you must reserve a separate free ticket from the box office for the performance.

TECTONICS: Recital Room Performance

Baltimore-born Marlo De Lara works within the realms of sound performance, visual distraction and film. Previously under the moniker ‘marlo eggplant’, their work aims to blur the definitions of the (un)intentional and the myth of permanence. Edinburgh-based Euan Currie cut his teeth in the early noughties with the group Muscletusk, described as a “psychedelic clatter team’s leatherboy tape-dirt party” (Giant Tank). More recently, he’s taken his solo sound collage and electronics project - Dead Labour Process – across Europe, Canada and Japan. Their live improvisation will draw on voices, electronics and field recordings. Expect an exploration of the miniscule properties of sound blown to senseless proportions, a sonic palette of unknown origins bonded in wordless dialogue across cluttered tables.

TECTONICS: Marlo De Lara & Euan Currie

City Halls & Old Fruitmarket

Elaine Mitchener, “the UK’s boldest operatic voice” (The Guardian), is an experimental vocalist, movement artist and composer whose work encompasses improvisation, contemporary music theatre and performance art.

TECTONICS: Elaine Mitchener

Your chance to meet and hear about some of the artists and music performed in Day 1 of Tectonics.

TECTONICS: Meet the Artists - Day 1

Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award winning composer, turntablist and performer, creating music described as “high-velocity sonic surrealism’” (The Guardian). Alongside composer Matthew Shlomowitz, their co-created ‘6 scenes’ are a divine collision of lots of things they love with some allusions to conventions from opera and concerti.

Tectonics: Bbc Sso 1

Norway-based duo Sarah-Jane Summers (fiddle) & Juhani Silvola (guitar) combine Scottish traditional music from the Highlands with influences from Scandinavian traditions and experimental music with the BBC SSO.

TECTONICS: Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola with BBC SSO

“Performers should not be afraid of playing good music” says Sean Shibe – the visionary, multi-award-winning Scottish guitarist who’s single-handedly redefining the way the 21st century thinks of his instrument. “And listeners should try not to be scared of listening to it”. No worries on that score, as Shibe pairs the world’s favourite guitar concerto with the first hearing (in this form, anyway) of a flickering, fantastical modern classic by the innovative Spanish composer Francisco Coll. The passion rises like heat-haze; no wonder, then, that guest conductor Delyana Lazarova has framed it with visions of wonder: Rimsky-Korsakov’s very Russian postcard from Spain, and the sorcery, secrets and ear-tingling sensations of a real BBC SSO favourite, Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’.

Afternoon Performance: Rodrigo Guitar Concerto

“My heartfelt homage to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful talent”. Audiences in the 1920s were astonished when the modernist firebrand Stravinsky started adapting Tchaikovsky. In fact, Stravinsky adored Tchaikovsky’s music, and his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss puts Tchaikovsky’s music under a very modern – but utterly captivating – spell. But then, under the baton of our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, there’s wonder in every note of this ravishing concert.

Hough Plays Rachmaninov in Aberdeen

“My heartfelt homage to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful talent”. Audiences in the 1920s were astonished when the modernist firebrand Stravinsky started adapting Tchaikovsky. In fact, Stravinsky adored Tchaikovsky’s music, and his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss puts Tchaikovsky’s music under a very modern – but utterly captivating – spell. But then, under the baton of our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, there’s wonder in every note of this ravishing concert. You’d expect no less, when the phenomenal pianist Stephen Hough works his very personal alchemy on Rachmaninov’s hugely-popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. But the music of Hans Abrahamsen’s fairy-tale opera The Snow Queen might be a little less familiar. Believe us – it’s pure enchantment.

Hough Plays Rachmaninov

Join us for a mesmerizing evening as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers present "Sir Michael Tippett’s New Year" on Saturday, 13th April 2024, at the City Halls. This unique event promises to be an unforgettable experience, featuring a live performance of Sir Michael Tippett’s space-age fairytale opera, "New Year," alongside a stellar cast of soloists including Rhian Lois, Ross Ramgobin, Susan Bickley, Roland Wood, Robert Murray, Rachel Nicholls, and Alan Oke. Under the baton of conductor Martyn Brabbins and with Victoria Newlyn as the stage director, the evening is set to be a showcase of exceptional talent.

"New Year" is a compelling opera that intertwines two worlds, as a visitor from the future, "Nowhere Tomorrow," aids the central character in overcoming personal fears and fantasies to confront the realities of "Somewhere Today." This opera, one of Tippett’s most adventurous works, completed at the age of 83, blends influences from opera, rock musicals, pop songs, spoken dialogue, jokes, and dance, offering an eclectic and engaging experience for the audience.

The concert will also feature a pre-performance discussion at 6:45 pm in the Recital Room, led by Oliver Soden, author of "Michael Tippett: The Biography," and Sally Groves, Tippett’s friend and colleague, in conversation with Kate Molleson. This panel will provide deeper insights into Tippett’s life and the opera, enriching your experience of the performance.

This event is part of the BBC SSO 2023-24 Season and the BBC Singers 2023-24 Season, marking 35 years of NMC Recordings and its dedication to British contemporary music. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance, with a limit of 4 tickets per application. Tickets will be available from 10 am on Wednesday, 7th February 2024.

Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the magic of Sir Michael Tippett’s "New Year" in a live performance that promises to be both thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining.

Sir Michael Tippett’s 'New Year' with BBC Singers

City Halls and Old Fruitmarket

Book your free ticket for this chance to experience a live performance of Sir Michael Tippett’s space-age fairytale opera New Year. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers and an internationally-renowned team of solo singers assemble to record a live, public performance of the complete opera, marking 35 years of NMC Recordings and its support of great titans of British contemporary music.

Sir Michael Tippett’s ‘New Year’ with BBC Singers

Judgement Day: drums roar, trumpets blast, and hundreds of voices cry to heaven. Arguably no composer had a deeper understanding of the human heart, or a more potent sense of drama, than Giuseppe Verdi. Blazing with emotion and conceived on the grandest possible scale, Verdi’s Requiem has been described as the greatest opera he never wrote. It’s raw sonic theatre, and 150 years after its first performance, our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth has assembled the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, the BBC SSO and a stellar team of solo singers – all ready to storm the ramparts of death itself.

Verdi’s Requiem in Edinburgh

Verdi’s Requiem

Rufus Wainwright brings an epic reimagining of his Want One and Want Two albums to Glasgow following performances across Europe and the US. Brand new arrangements, performed live with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Rufus Wainwright's ‘Want Symphonic’ LIVE with BBC SSO

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Great artists can draw strength from tradition. When Brahms wrote his final symphony, he reached back across the centuries to find courage and strength as he strode forward into the storm. It’s as moving as it is powerful. In jazz-age America, Samuel Barber reinvented the romantic violin concerto with streamlined melodies and all-American verve; BBC New Generation Artist Geneva Lewis is the soloist today, and you’re about to hear why Musical America described her as “one to watch”. And Sarah Gibson takes handloom weaving as her inspiration: warp & weft is a vibrant, evocative modern celebration of female creativity, woven from sounds that glow in the ear. Gemma New conducts a concert of rich colours and luminous emotions.

Barber Violin Concerto

The BBC SSO and conductor Alpesh Chauhan bring the festival weekend to a close with the final notes Bruckner ever wrote, the incomplete Symphony No. 9. There’s something deeply spiritual, other-worldly even, about this final work which Bruckner dedicated ‘to my beloved God.’ Be moved by the heart-on-sleeve emotion and declaration of faith, expressed in exquisite orchestral colour.

Bruckner's Ninth Symphony at The Glasshouse

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

Bruckner never finished his Ninth Symphony. At the end of a lifetime’s spiritual striving, he poured both his unquenchable faith and his agonising doubts into one mighty final testament “to my beloved God” – and then fell at the final hurdle. But it doesn’t feel that way, and the music that he did complete is among the most majestic (and moving) experiences in all of Romantic art. Conductor Alpesh Chauhan loves this music profoundly, and he pairs it with equally uninhibited music by two near-contemporaries of Bruckner who wore their hearts (and their knack with a great tune) proudly upon their sleeves, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Giacomo Puccini.

Bruckner’s Symphony No.9

Tunes For Tots Stranraer

Park Primary School

'Tunes for Tots' is 35-minutes long, for children up to 5 years old with their parents or carers.

Tunes for Tots Greenock

Beacon Arts Centre

No composer does emotion quite like Tchaikovsky. “With desire and passion”, he wrote on the score of his Fifth Symphony, and it begins in melancholy and ends in roof-raising celebration. No wonder it’s one of the most popular symphonies ever composed - and conductor Tabita Berglund will bring out its raw power as well as all those unforgettable tunes. It’s a stirring climax to a concert that begins with a haunting folksong from the fjords of Norway, and stars the great Truls Mørk in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto: music of heartfelt tenderness and epic grandeur. Some say it was inspired when the composer saw Niagara Falls – but decide for yourself today.

Perth Concert Series: Tchaikovsky's Fifth

“With desire and passion”, he wrote on the score of his Fifth Symphony, and it begins in melancholy and ends in roof-raising celebration. Join us, conductor Tabita Berglund and soloist Truls Mørk for an evening of pulse-raising passion.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5

Join us for a 35 minute musical story, and get a chance to listen, sing, dance, and meet musicians from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Tunes for Tots in Saltcoats

Tunes for Tots in Inverness

Merkinch Community Centre

A piano plays a chord in the silence, and a chain of sound grows, swells, and breaks into passionate, endless song. No question, the great Romantic composers knew how to unleash emotion: whether it’s Tchaikovsky diving into the whirlwind of a doomed love or Puccini creating melodies to melt the heart. Or, indeed, Rachmaninov uniting a glittering piano and a sumptuous orchestra in an concerto that could have been written for soloist Boris Giltburg. “Every note pulses with life and warmth” was how one critic described his playing, and the same could be said when guest conductor Ludovic Morlot shares Roxanna Panufnik’s vivid new versions of Alma Mahler’s lovely, neglected songs.

Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2 in Inverness

Eden Court Inverness

A piano plays a chord in the silence, and a chain of sound grows, swells, and breaks into passionate, endless song. No question, the great Romantic composers knew how to unleash emotion: whether it’s Tchaikovsky diving into the whirlwind of a doomed love or Puccini creating melodies to melt the heart. Or, indeed, Rachmaninov uniting a glittering piano and a sumptuous orchestra in a concerto that could have been written for our soloist, Boris Giltburg. “Every note pulses with life and warmth” was how one critic described his playing, and the same could be said when guest conductor Ludovic Morlot shares Roxanna Panufnik’s vivid new versions of Alma Mahler’s neglected love songs.

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2

Tunes for Tots in Aberdeen (Quieter Session)

Tunes for Tots in Aberdeen

“Free but happy” is the motto that Brahms gave to his Third Symphony, and it opens with all the freshness of a summer storm. What comes next is a musical landscape of rolling clouds, tender lullabies, and radiant sunsets: a haunting finish to a concert that’s all about light, shade, and deep feelings. If you thought Elgar’s popular Cello Concerto was merely the sound of green fields and rolling hills, think again, as cellist Dai Miyata – praised by critics for his “sublime beauty of tone” – joins Ryan Wigglesworth to uncover its troubled soul. And explore a new world o

Elgar’s Cello Concerto in Aberdeen

“Free but happy” is the motto that Brahms gave to his Third Symphony, and it opens with all the freshness of a summer storm. What comes next is a musical landscape of rolling clouds, tender lullabies, and radiant sunsets: a haunting finish to a concert that’s all about light, shade, and deep feelings. If you thought Elgar’s popular Cello Concerto was merely the sound of green fields and rolling hills, think again, as cellist Dai Miyata – praised by critics for his “sublime beauty of tone” – joins Ryan Wigglesworth to uncover its troubled soul. And explore a new world of sound from the imagination of Lisa Illean, who creates music (it’s been said) from “exquisitely quiet shadows”.

Afternoon Performance: Elgar’s Cello Concerto

Take Ilan Volkov, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s charismatic Principal Guest Conductor, and a byword for music-making without compromise. Add Joanna MacGregor: the energising, genre-busting British pianist who plays by no rules but her own. Now put them together with the melody, the wit and the irrepressible imagination of a 21-year-old genius called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and that’s just the centrepiece of a concert that pairs the most dazzling musical mind of the late 18th century with the composer who revolutionised the 20th. Driving rhythms, fabulous colours, and fairground puppets that spring to startling, heart-breaking life: this is the musical world of Igor Stravinsky, and we can’t wait to show you around.

Perth Concert Series: Volkov Conducts Petrushka

On a spring day in an imaginary Russia, an excited crowd gathers for a puppet show. Petrushka loves the Ballerina. She prefers another. Tragedy looms, but don’t worry: puppets don’t have souls…do they? Stravinsky’s 'Petrushka' paints Russian tradition in colours as bright as a piece of folk art – and as sinister as the 20th century. It’s a wonderfully bold finale for a concert that opens with Stravinsky at his most startling, and which unites two dauntless musical explorers – pianist Joanna MacGregor and our Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov – in the haunting, utterly original Piano Concerto by Howard Skempton. A striking new work by one of British music’s true radicals completes an evening of music that fascinates and thrills.

Volkov Conducts ‘Petrushka’

The BBC SSO returns to Celtic Connections for the Opening Night of the Festival. The orchestra join American mandolinist and singer-songwriter Chris Thile for his work ATTENTION! a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra.

Celtic Connections Opening Night: Chris Thile with the BBC SSO and Rachel Sermanni

From music as bracing and exhilarating as a midnight sleigh-ride, to the comforts of familiar seasonal favourites, the BBC SSO invites you to an evening of Christmas orchestral magic. Enjoy instantly recognisable melodies of Yuletide carols and festive songs, all wrapped up in the luxurious sound of a live orchestra and hosted by the wonderful Jamie MacDougall. Book now, for a concert that’s brimming with festive good cheer and the perfect kick-start to your seasonal celebrations.

Christmas Classics in Aberdeen

Christmas Classics in Ayr

Town Hall

Christmas at the Movies in Edinburgh

Can you imagine Christmas without a classic film (or two) to enjoy with a cheeky sherry (or three)? Well some sensible folks can’t even imagine a Christmas without our annual festive feast of movie music. And if you’re 8 or 80 there’s something for you. Expect the sumptuous sounds of Hollywood’s Golden Age, John Williams blockbusters, Disney favourites and the occasional surprise. Singer and presenter Jamie MacDougall is once again in the director’s chair for this fabulous matinee performance.

Christmas at the Movies

There’s a special kinship between Scotland and Poland – two nations with stirring histories and dauntless spirits. Grażyna Bacewicz stood her own ground in a time of tyranny, writing music as characterful as it is defiant. Karol Szymanowski imagined new realms of musical sensuality, and the dazzling young South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim is passionate about his silken, shimmering First Violin Concerto. Then, to finish, Witold Lutosławski launches fabulous musical fireworks into the grey skies of communist Poland. Fiery, playful, and utterly original his Concerto for Orchestra is one of post-war music’s true showstoppers, and it’s a special favourite of guest conductor Marta Gardolińska. She won’t hold back today.

Afternoon Performance: Muzyka Polska!

UPDATE: We are sorry to announce that Sir Mark Elder is indisposed and will not be conducting tonight at Glasgow City Halls. We are most grateful to Martyn Brabbins who steps in at short notice to conduct the programme as originally advertised.

The Shostakovich Piano Concertos

Join our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth for Elgar's majestic First Symphony and Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20 with BBC Young Musician 2014, Martin James Bartlett.

Elgar: Symphony No.1 in Edinburgh

Elgar Symphony No.1

Alpesh Chauhan takes you through the sorrow and sweetness of Mahler's 'Das Lied von der Erde' with soloists Brendan Gunnell and Karen Cargill.

Mahler's 'Song of the Earth'

Join us at Paisley Abbey for a truly uplifting concert featuring Saint-Saëns’s show-stopping Organ Symphony!

Saint-Saëns's Organ Symphony at Paisley Abbey

Paisley Abbey

The completed work of David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless' returns to City Halls for a performance preceded by a discussion with the composer and a screening of Les Blank’s 1982 documentary of the 'Fitzcarraldo' shoot, 'Burden of Dreams'

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless'

Mult-talented composer/conductor Jörg Widmann directs a selection of his own compositions before exploring Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

Afternoon Performance: Beethoven 7

Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth continues our exploration of Stravinsky’s ballet music with 'Orpheus', and Martin Robertson is the sax soloist Mark-Anthony Turnage's moody, impassioned concerto.

Stravinsky & Turnage

The BBC SSO join The Cumnock Tryst's Big Saturday. 2 concerts, 300 performers, 21 world premieres.


The Cumnock Tryst Big Saturday: In The Stars

Barony Hall

The BBC SSO join The Cumnock Tryst's Big Saturday. 2 concerts, 300 performers, 21 world premieres.

The Cumnock Tryst Big Saturday: Darkness into Darkness

Tunes for Tots in Milnathort

Milnathort Town Hall

“Frustrated in love, a young musician of deep sensitivity and ardent imagination takes opium…” Berlioz’s big-hearted blockbuster, Symphonie fantastique began as a nineteenth century tale of drugs and lust. It became… well, the name says it all, really. This is a sonic extravaganza of gothic horror, hopeless devotion and glorious excess, played by one of the biggest orchestras the world had then seen.

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in Aberdeen

Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov pairs Berlioz's big-hearted blockbuster 'Symphonie fantastique' with one of the best classical music works of the 21st century (The Guardian).

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Join us for the opening of the BBC SSO’s 2023/24 season with Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth for Mahler's heavenly Fourth Symphony.

Opening Night: Mahler 4

Pianist Steven Osborne and Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth join the BBC SSO in East Lothian as the Lammermuir Festival returns.

Lammermuir Festival 2023

St Mary's Church

Conductor Karina Canellakis, renowned for delivering emotionally charged performances, takes on feats of musical storytelling in this narrative programme. Excerpts from Richard Wagner’s influential opera Tristan und Isolde capture two lovers at the beginning and end of their doomed love affair. Alexander Scriabin’s symphonic Poème de l’extase, or Poem of Ecstasy, is an immersive experience of delicately layered melodic motif



Edinburgh International Festival: Closing Concert

New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New makes her Proms debut leading the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky’s The Firebird, Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and the European premiere of Samy Moussa’s Symphony No. 2.

Prom 44: Stravinsky’s The Firebird

György Kurtág’s ‘unforgettable’ adaption of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play has its highly anticipated UK premiere, given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth.

Prom 43: György Kurtág’s Endgame

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth invite you to explore orchestral works by some of today’s most exciting composers. Festival Director Nicola Benedetti – a champion of contemporary classical music – and acclaimed broadcaster Tom Service will present this event.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’

Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony and a world premiere by American composer Catherine Lamb.

Prom 13: Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and new Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for the first of their two Proms together this season.

Prom 12: Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony

Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony is a pulse-raising experience that depicts events of the 1905 Russian Revolution with all the sweep and emotional impact of a film score. The BBC SSO is joined by students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Shostakovich 11: BBC SSO & RCS

Join conducting talent from across the UK and from Finland as they direct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a varied programme of works by Judith Weir, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. This concert, jointly presented by the BBC SSO and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is the culmination of a week’s activities with conductor Martyn Brabbins.

Young Conductors Showcase - RCS & BBC SSO

Comic genius Harold Lloyd is the hapless hero in this iconic silent romantic-comedy film that follows a boy’s attempt to earn enough money to support his girlfriend. As soon as he makes it big in New York City, she will follow and marry him. But all doesn’t go to plan… Performing his own death-defying stunts with slapstick bravado, one of the most enduring images in cinema is Lloyd hanging from a clock face - apparently dangling from the side of New York skyscraper!

‘Safety Last!’ LIVE in Concert

Our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth closes the season with a passionate and moving concert with 2012’s BBC Young Musician, Laura van der Heijden.

Elgar's Symphony No.2

Inspiration comes in many forms. After visiting the Palace of Holyrood in 1829, the young Felix Mendelssohn wrote, ‘I believe I found today in the old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony’. The Third might allude to the life of Mary Queen of Scots but it also pays tribute to toe-tapping folk tunes along the way. Kaija Saariaho found her inspiration in the mechanics and wonder of moving images (specifically those of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman) and her Magic Lantern glows with its own inner light. Ravel, meanwhile, romps through the worlds of jazz, Basque folk-song and French impressionism, and somehow manages to be utterly serious, teasingly playful and elegantly cool all at the same time. The brilliant Denis Kozhukhin and Simone Menezes team up for this incredible concert.

Mendelssohn 'Scottish' Symphony in Edinburgh

Pianist Denis Kozhukhin and conductor Simone Menezes join the orchestra for an inspired evening at Glasgow City Halls.

Mendelssohn: 'Scottish' Symphony

Prepare for lift-off as John Williams’ iconic scores from Star Wars take flight with the forces of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and 60+ singers of the National Youth Choir of Scotland!

Star Wars: An Orchestral Saga

Closing Tectonics Festival 2023 we have composer, improvisor and sound artist Jérôme Noetinger with his solo set.

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Nov 24, 2024

Afternoon Performance: Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

Nov 28, 2024

Beethoven's 'Eroica’ Symphony

Dec 20, 2024

Christmas Classics in Aberdeen

Dec 21, 2024

Christmas at the Movies in Edinburgh

Dec 22, 2024

Christmas at the Movies

Nov 14, 2024

Elder Conducts Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty

Nov 8, 2024

Perth Concert Series: Mark Padmore Sings Britten

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