The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with guest conductor Emilia Hoving and violinist Maya Iwabuchi, plays Brahms' Violin Concerto, Sibelius' Symphony No. 6 and Saariaho's Ciel d'hiver.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra are at the Music Hall on Thursday 22 October, with the Finnish conductor Emilia Hoving leading the night. It's a programme that pulls from two very different landscapes, and the two halves don't overlap so much as they sit side by side.
The first half stays firmly in the north. Hoving has put together a pairing of two Finnish composers: Kaija Saariaho's Ciel d'hiver (Winter Sky) and Sibelius' Symphony No. 6. Hoving describes the set as being inspired by the landscapes of the far north — lakes, forests, midnight light and the northern lights — and that's exactly where Saariaho and Sibelius take you. Saariaho's Ciel d'hiver is the more recent of the two, and it shares that same cold, open air that Sibelius built his reputation on.
Then the focus shifts. Maya Iwabuchi, the RSNO's leader, steps forward to take the solo for Brahms' Violin Concerto. If the first half is the far north, this is the autumn Alps of Austria. It's one of the big, sweeping concertos that every violinist knows, and hearing it from the orchestra's own leader gives it a different kind of weight than when a guest soloist flies in for a one-off.
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There's also a local element to the night: the RSNO will be joined on stage by the young musicians of Big Noise Torry, and the whole evening is presented as A Walk to Brahms' Violin Concerto, which is a Scottish premiere. It's a good mix of the established and the new, and it's one of the RSNO's stops in Aberdeen this season.
The concert starts at 19:30 at the Music Hall, and tickets go from £15 to £36.
