The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Samy Rachid with Rafał Blechacz at the piano, plays Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Thea Musgrave's Loch Ness.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra are at Usher Hall on Friday 11 December, bringing a programme they're touring across Scotland with dates also at Perth Concert Hall and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. It's a mixed bill that moves from a Bacewicz overture into Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Rafał Blechacz on piano. The second half pairs Thea Musgrave's Loch Ness - A Postcard from Scotland with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, in the Ravel orchestration.
Samy Rachid is conducting, stepping in for Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, who is on maternity leave. He's an international conductor who's made debuts this season with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Houston Symphony, Ulster Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and was assistant conductor to Andris Nelsons at the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 2023 to 2026.
The Edinburgh leg is at Usher Hall on Lothian Road, the city's main venue for visiting orchestras and home of the Edinburgh International Festival since 1947. It's a Beaux Arts hall that opened in 1914 after Andrew Usher gave £100,000 to the city, and it's still one of Edinburgh's architectural gems, with acoustics ranked among the best in Europe.
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The concert starts at 19:30 and runs for about an hour and 50 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. If you've got a ticket, there's a pre-concert talk at 18:45 to open up the music before the first note.
