Classical: The decision to showcase tne living composers in new season may surprise some but will please a growing young audience

Published on Tuesday 30 March 2010 19:02

FOR the first time in decades, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra will include a significant package of music by living composers within its main concert season. Unlike previous attempts to address the orchestra's notoriously appalling record in this area, this latest initiative is neither a token gesture nor a ghettoised add-on to the main season.

Subscription bookings for the 2010-11 seasons in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee open today, and it's safe to say regular audiences will be struck by both the challenge and excitement of a season that contains music by ten living composers, from Scots-born James MacMillan and Helen Grime to the American minimalist giant John Adams and big-time Finnish conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen.

They've all been programmed up-front alongside such mouth-watering prospects as Neeme Jrvi and Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, Nicola Benedetti and Korngold's swashbuckling Violin Concerto, Hungarian conductor Gilbert Varga and Kodaly's Hry Jnos Suite, Imogen Cooper and Mozart's Piano Concerto No 20, Thomas Sndergrd and Nielsen's explosive Inextinguishable Symphony, and resident chief conductor Stphane Denve in music as diverse as Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, Beethoven's Ninth, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole.

More importantly and probably for the first time since the adventure days of Sir Alexander Gibson, the one thing the RSNO is not issuing is an apology for playing new music. Unveiling the plans yesterday, chief executive Simon Woods put it down to one simple factor – "a position of confidence".

That is something, he says, that stems from the orchestra working very hard to engage its audiences more fully, to get more young people interested in its work, and to establish "a strong and stable financial base".

The evidence supports his claim. "Subscription levels are at their highest for two decades, under-26s signing up to the orchestra's unique online social network have contributed directly to a 25 per cent growth in that particular area of ticket sales, and audiences for the Usher Hall are now 50 per cent larger than when Stphane first took up the music director's baton in 2005", he says.

"We've brought the audience on a journey over the past few years and earned a trust that lets us do something a little more interesting to spice up the season."

So what is it about this contemporary implant to the new season that should not strike instant fear into the minds of the notoriously conservative RSNO faithful? The answer is based on the fact that the music all stems from the past ten years. It is bang up to date, says Woods, and in tune with the times.

"We've always wanted to do some form of contemporary music project, and Stphane came up with the idea of celebrating the first decade of the 21st century. If you look back 25 years ago, there was a big time modernist tradition which was hard for traditional audiences to grasp. A lot has changed, and there are many composers writing now who are neither modernist nor forbidding. We live in a postmodern age where so much new music is accessible, vibrant and speaks to personal emotion and reflects the spirit of our times."

In truth, many of the ten composers selected are already household names. James MacMillan is represented by the Three Interludes from his latest opera The Sacrifice (their first ever Central Belt performances); Frenchman Guillaume Connesson by Aleph, a previous RSNO commission; Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg's Graffiti, based on wall scribblings from Pompeii, features the RSNO Chorus; John Adams and Oliver Knussen are the elder statesmen, Adam's On the Transmigration of Souls acting as the warm-up act to Beethoven's Symphony No 9 which closes the season.

Was there any specific rationale behind the selection of works that also include Virga, last year's BBC Proms commission from the talented Helen Grime, Peter Lieberson's stunningly beautiful Neruda Songs (made famous in the recording by his wife Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson a few months before she died), and the wild and feverish Insomnia by Salonen, which takes its inspiration from Hollywood?

"There's no pretence that this is a balanced world view," says Woods, although he believes the mix of three Brits, two Germans, one Frenchman, three Finns and three Americans is a intriguing representation of countries where new music is alive and kicking.

"Stphane and I wrote letters to a load of conductors, to other administrators, to publisher friends asking them what three pieces from the last ten years had most impressed them," Woods adds. "The replies showed very little common ground, so we set about listening to a huge number of works. The only criteria centred on quality. We were determined not to be swayed by fame, political correctness or balance of countries. Interestingly, some well-known composers were rejected."

It's a project that will spill over into other recently successful new areas of RSNO activity. For instance, Salonen's Insomnia will be presented as part of the Naked Classics series, which continues in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and extends partially next season to Dundee.

Woods also announced a brand new three-concert chamber music series, which will take place in Glasgow's St Mary's Cathedral and at Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios. "It's something the players very much wanted to do. We tried out the Edinburgh venue last year and the acoustics were wonderful. It seemed the obvious place to present the series," he explains. Schubert's Octet will feature in September's opening concert.

A newfound confidence hangs over every aspect of RSNO activity these days. But as Wood warned, there are major challenges ahead, such as ending the long search for a new leader, and finding a replacement for Denve, who announced recently that he is stepping down in 2012. "I am quietly confident we can find a successor to Stphane to be in place by the 2012-13 season," says a bullish Woods.

As for a leader, he is only too aware the problem these days is finding someone who wants to lead an orchestra full-time. "Most of our peer orchestras in the UK have part-time leaders, and that's going to be the most likely solution for us," he says. If reputation counts for anything, this bold new season could easily go a long way towards speeding up the process.

&#149 Subscription booking for the RSNO 2011-12 seasons in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen opens today. For more information, visit www.rsno.org.uk