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Pitlochry debut

Posted by admin
30th June 2009 at 11:42 - 1 comment


Sunday night was the final night of our Highlands Tour, at Pitlochry Festival Theatre - a debut venue for the Orchestra. There's been a theatre on this site - nestled by the River Tummel - since the 1950s (originally a marquee) but the current theatre has been there in 1981.

(The talk of tents has reminded me that I meant to let you know that a few of our brass players had chosen to sleep under canvas on this tour - a good choice given the marvellously sunny weather!)

Anyway, back to Pitlochry... the theatre has an established programme of events, from musicals to plays, so it was great to be able to finally take the Orchestra there. The audience were not just from the local area - I spoke to several people who had travelled from as far as Edinburgh and Glasgow, many of them regular attenders at Pitlochry Festival Theatre events so it's obviously a popular venue. (It has a lovely gift shop by the way, and a cafe too, so worth stopping by if you're passing, even if there's nothing on to see!).

The band had a short rehearsal to familiarise themselves with the acoustic (on the dry side apparently) and then there was time to have a picnic dinner by the river, although the midges also joined us...!

We were delighted that representatives from the Misses Barrie Charitable Trust were able to attend the concert - they had helped fund the tour. At the interval, they were whisked out of the auditorium into the warren that is backstage and got the opportunity to meet the Maestro himself!

All in all, it's been a splendid tour and a lovely opportunity for everyone - players and audiences - to get to know Robin a little better before he returns as Principal Conductor for concerts in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St Andrews in December.
Meanwhile, plenty more blogging to follow over the coming weeks as the SCO records its second volume of Mozart Symphonies with Sir Charles Mackerras, tours to the Western Isles (Strings) and Birnam, Oban and Crear (Wind and Brass), and performs at the BBC Proms on 31 July with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. We do hope you can join us again then.

A dip in the sea

Posted by admin
28th June 2009 at 08:49 - 0 comments

We travelled from Strathpeffer to Findhorn on Saturday morning, about an hour's drive. Strathpeffer is home to a fabulous chocolate shop, where many SCO players could be found purchasing lovely chocolates! Soloist Alison and I indulged in a gooey hot chocolate mmm.

Later, on arrival in Findhorn village, we enjoyed lunch at the Kimberly Inn and conductor Robin took a dip in the rather refreshing Moray Firth. Pic below!

Here's a photo of Findhorn bay.

-- Lauren, SCO Marketing

Finding ourselves in Findhorn

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28th June 2009 at 07:21 - 0 comments

Last night we played in the Universal Hall at the Findhorn Foundation in Morayshire. The Findhorn Foundation is a spiritual community and ecovillage where they strive to create a positive and sustainable future. It's pretty relaxed and chilled out place!

The pentagon-shaped Universal Hall was built by volunteers visiting or living at the Findhorn Foundation Community in the ten years from 1974 to 1984. The auditorium seats 280 people comfortably and up to 400 on a 'get-well-aquainted' basis. We managed about 300 last night (the band taking up a fair bit of space of course).

The hall was designed by British architect George Ripley. It has a hand-carved stone exterior facing, a magnificent stained glass entrance and geodesic roof construction - five enormous wooden ring beams hold up the roof. Sitting at the edge of a sand dune/wilderness area, it really is quite a unique venue

The audience here are a bit more expressive, and less restrained, when it comes to responding to the music. There were a few people swaying along to the music!

Pre-concert, conductor Robin managed to get hold of an SCO branded t-shirt ("great for rehearsing in") so now he really is one of the gang!

-- Lauren, SCO Marketing

A dear place

Posted by admin
27th June 2009 at 10:08 - 0 comments

And so it was that Robin Ticciati conducted the Orchestra in Strathpeffer Pavilion, a year after he made his debut with the SCO in this lovely venue. It was a hot evening, so we left all the patio doors down the side of the hall wide open, allowing Faure, Haydn, Berlioz and Poulenc to drift out into the village.

Talking to the audience during the concert, Robin said that Strathpeffer is particularly dear to him, as it was his very first concert with the SCO, and how nice it is to be back again with the band.

We took the opportunity to do some filming during the rehearsal (pic below), filmed by our sponsors SATV, and also grabbed 5 minutes with Robin to ask him about what the future holds for the SCO - you'll be able to watch some of this footage on our new website (currently undergoing rebuild and redesign) from September.


-- Post From My iPhone

What kind of tree is this?

Posted by admin
26th June 2009 at 16:59 - 1 comment

This lovely tree is situated beside the Spa Pavilion, but we're not sure what kind it is - any takers?


-- Post From My iPhone

Sunny Strathpeffer

Posted by admin
26th June 2009 at 15:05 - 2 comments

Here we are in Strathpeffer, north west of Inverness. The Pavilion is a lovely building, as you can see. Tonight we're expecting an audience of about 300; in fact there's only about 20 tickets left so come early if you're planning on attending.

Ronnie and Eric our Roadie team are getting set up this afternoon, putting up lights and getting everything all laid out. And here's a photo too of the mega-solid box that the music travels in - no sheet music gets bashed about in this hard case!


Lauren, SCO Marketing
-- Post From My iPhone

A Highland Fling

Posted by admin
25th June 2009 at 07:12 - 0 comments


The last time Londoner Robin Ticciati accompanied the Orchestra on a Highland Tour, we all got a bit excited because he quickly established a wonderful rapport with the band. We don't usually rush into relationships; in fact we quite like to invite conductors back to the podium for a few more dates, just to get to know them a bit better, perhaps go for dinner even! But with Robin, the band just knew this was the 'real thing'. So our MD pursued Robin, and a few months after his first dates with us, he had agreed to be the SCO's Principal Conductor, starting September 2009.

Since then both Robin and the Orchestra have been so busy with work that we've not seen a lot of each other, you know how it is... But, as the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and so it is that we skip into rehearsals, knowing that some happy sparks are going to get set alight this week!

So here's the plan: bit more fine-tuning in rehearsals today in Edinburgh, and then tomorrow we all jump on the A9 to Strathpeffer Pavilion (8pm, Friday 26 June), the magical Universal Hall in Findhorn (8pm, Saturday 27 June) and an SCO premiere in Pitlochry Festival Theatre (8pm, Sunday 28 June). Oh and by the way, we're playing Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande, Poulenc's Flute Sonata (arr. Berkeley), Berlioz's Overture, The Flight into Egypt, before finishing off in timely fashion with Haydn's Symphony No 101 'Clock'.

Education Tour 4

Posted by admin
16th June 2009 at 09:15 - 0 comments




Well we've wrapped up our Education Tour of the Western Isles, and it was a great success. It turned out to be quite a busy schedule, and we packed a lot in the 4 days we were visiting. It was lovely to have the group of pupils with their teacher coming up to join us in Lionacleit from Barra each day for the Composition Workshops, and they all worked super hard to have some quite inspired compositions ready by the end of the sessions. It was wonderful to visit such a beautiful part of the country, the beaches really are spectacular and comparable to the best in the world. It was great to meet the pupils and staff from all over the Western Isles ahead of our String Tour in July, and we hope to come back with more Workshops in the future!

Melissa Harris
SCO Education

Education Tour 3

Posted by admin
11th June 2009 at 08:21 - 2 comments




SCO Education had a great Day 3 in Benbecula. A keen group of pupils coming together at Sgoil Lionacleit from Benbecula and Barra greeted us, and everyone put in a good day's work on developing new compositional ideas. After dropping Donnie Gillan off at the bottom of a hill in the pouring rain for a hike, Alasdair and Lise were back at the school in the early evening for another Masterclass. Once again this proved very worthwhile and the pupils enjoyed the session. Just as we were heading off for the car a super keen pupil asked for a pile of manuscript as he was inspired to go straight home and work on his composition for the next day! So we're looking forward to our final day of workshops, and particularly to see the results of this enthusiastic pupil! Oh, and don't worry - we found Donnie safe and sound. 

Education Tour 2

Posted by admin
10th June 2009 at 08:22 - 0 comments

Alasdair Nicolson, Lise Aferiat and Donnie Gillan are now half-way through our Education Tour of the Western Isles. Everyone arrived safely on Monday by air and ferry, and we arrived at The Nicolson Institute ready and rearing to go. Despite the security overload and the whole school going completely batty with the visit by Princess Anne we managed to start off our Composition Workshops with the visiting pupils from the Isle of Harris. (We unfortunately weren't invited to join her for tea :( ) The Masterclasses in the evening proved a great success, with 'cello, violin and piano pupils from all over Lewis and Harris making the most of having visiting professional musicians to give them extra advice. It was also lovely to meet with the local Music Teachers and have a chat about what's happening in the schools and communities in the area.

Day 2 saw the pupils from both Harris and Lewis coming together for more composition workshops. During the sessions they were given the opportunity for the musicians to play back their ideas as they were writing them - making suggestions for how to write for violin and 'cello. It was exciting to see the growing confidence in the pupils as the day went on, and by the end they were instructing the musicians on how exactly to play what they were intending. After a quick goodbye to the staff and pupils, we were off in the car for an incredibly picturesque drive to make our ferry connection from Leverburgh to Berneray. After a perfectly smooth twilight crossing, we arrived at our hotel ready to sample the local produce - delicious cockles, salmon and scallops. We're now excited to meet the pupils coming together this morning from Barra and Benbecula. More budding composers...

By Melissa Harris
SCO Education