There’s a rather large elephant in the room when it comes to talking about Scotland’s classical music in 2023. But it’s one we simply can’t – rather than won’t – talk about. Snapping up Ayrshire-born superstar violinist and educator Nicola Benedetti as festival director was quite a coup for the Edinburgh International Festival, but the institution is remaining understandably tight-lipped about any of Benedetti’s specific plans for her first outing in 2023, which won’t be revealed until later in the year.

Classical music is sure to remain a key ingredient in the festival’s mix of events. We can get a few hints about what form it might take from Benedetti’s own mission statement on the festival’s website. Remembering her own experiences as a child who didn’t attend classical concerts or opera, she’s keen to connect with the widest possible audience, and alongside the festival’s international perspective, she also reminds us that it’s very much a Scottish event. For the moment, however, we’ll have to wait and see how those issues illuminate the music programme.

Other things, however, are a bit clearer. Early 2023 is a good time for lovers of Brahms, with seasons of his music from both the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra (though – thankfully – there’s no overlap between the two ensembles’ programmes). Thomas Søndergård conducts the RSNO in the Second and Third Symphonies in Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow in March, followed by a chamber concert at the end of April. If anything, the SCO’s looks like the more unusual offering, with a slimmed-down orchestra and all the trademark athletic energy of conductor Maxim Emelyanychev directed at Brahms’s Violin Concerto and First Symphony (plus more chamber music) in February, and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem bringing the season to a consoling close in May.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason PIC: Kate Green/Getty Images

Staying with the RSNO, the temporary closure of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall gives us the chance to experience the orchestra in some alternative venues – the more intimate setting of City Halls, and also the more cavernous space of the SEC Armadillo, where it performs film music by John Williams in March. Two months later comes what’s surely the RSNO’s highest-profile season concert, with a starry trio of soloists – Nicola Benedetti, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Benjamin Grosvenor – joining the orchestra for Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto.

Back with the SCO, there’s plenty to look forward to in spring concerts – Bernard Labadie conducting Handel’s royal music in March, Karen Cargill singing Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été in April, for example. But for anyone looking for something a little out of the ordinary, the SCO’s digital season offers a particularly rich menu of pieces from Shostakovich, Florence Price, Nokuthula Ngwenyama and Jonny Greenwood. Looking further ahead, planning’s already underway for the SCO’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2023-24: again, lips are tightly sealed on specifics, but we’re promised some birthday surprises.

Over with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, incoming Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth continues to cement his position as a strong, innovative helmsman, not least with two big orchestral warhorses in early 2023: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (February) and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony (April). Wigglesworth’s predecessor-but-one Donald Runnicles makes a welcome return in February, too, for Mahler’s monumental Ninth Symphony in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Despite two high-profile shows – Candide and Ainadamar – it’s felt like rather a low-key 60th-anniversary season from Scottish Opera. Nonetheless, two big new productions are still to come. David McVicar returns to tackle the trilogy of contrasting one-acters in Puccini’s Il trittico in March, and John Fulljames (the director behind the visionary Nixon in China in 2020) returns to reappraise Bizet’s Carmen in May and June. Elsewhere, the Dunedin Consort has a particularly busy and varied programme, from Haydn symphonies conducted by Peter Whelan in February to the extraordinary and almost never heard Biblical cantatas by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre in June.

The RSNO and Thomas Søndergård PIC: Sally Jubb

And it’s a busy year, too, for James MacMillan. He brings in the New Year by conducting Handel’s Messiah for the very first time, with the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union in the Usher Hall on 2 January. He’s also putting together a new piece for chorus and orchestra to celebrate the 50th anniversary of St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, to be unveiled at a special celebratory concert in the Queen’s Hall on 26 June. Nurturing young talent has long been one of Nicola Benedetti’s missions – we’ll wait to see what form that might take in her first EIF – but youthful musical know-how will be clearly on show from St Mary’s accomplished students too.

2023 Arts Preview: The Year Ahead in Classical Music