• Ryan Wigglesworth debuts as Chief Conductor with Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé
• Wigglesworth conducts part of Messiaen’s Saint François D’Assise and joins BBC SSO principals for the Quartet for the End of Time to mark 30 years since the composer’s death 
• Hans Abrahamsen appointed BBC SSO Composer-in-Association, with the UK premiere of his recent work Vers le silence  
• World Premieres from Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Abel Selaocoe and Jonathan Woolgar
• Ilan Volkov gives UK premieres of works by Øyvind Torvund and Stefan Prins
• Associate Conductor Alpesh Chauhan directs Scheherazade and Shostakovich’s Fifth
• Mahler’s Ninth with Sir Donald Runnicles in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh  
• Isata Kanneh-Mason, Pablo Ferrández and the BBC Singers in artist residencies
• Guest conductors include Joana Carneiro, Hannu Lintu, Kristiina Poska, Anu Tali, Matthias Pintscher, Michael Sanderling, Tabita Berglund and Martyn Brabbins    
• Screening of Scott of the Antarctic with Vaughan Williams’ score performed live
• Tectonics Glasgow 2023     
• Live broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds and selected concerts on BBC iPlayer

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2022/23 Season of concerts in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh with a wide range of music from Adès to Zemlinsky.

Ryan Wigglesworth will make his debut as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor at Glasgow’s City Halls on Thursday 22 September with a complete performance of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. The Opening Night concert also includes music by Messiaen to mark 30 years since the composer’s death; and on the following evening Wigglesworth will take to the keyboard to join BBC SSO principals for a performance of the composer’s Quartet for the End of Time. Later in the Season, audiences in Glasgow and Edinburgh will also have a very rare chance to experience The Sermon to the Birds from Messiaen’s spectacular opera, Saint François D’Assise.

Ryan Wigglesworth says: “I look forward with huge anticipation to each and every event of this coming season, my first as Chief Conductor. The sheer range and variety of music on offer is firm testament to the skill, virtuosity and versatility of my brilliant colleagues at the BBCSSO. We can’t wait to share with you the thrills that lie ahead!”

Across the Season Wigglesworth has programmed a broad range of repertoire, including two concerts connecting Stravinsky and Bach, Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ and Elgar’s Second symphonies, Janáček’s Sinfonietta and his own distillation of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with soprano Katherine Broderick. That concert also includes the UK Premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s Vers le silence, marking the start of Abrahamsen’s role as the orchestra’s new Composer-in-Association.

Hans Abrahamsen says: “It is a great honour and pleasure to be appointed Composer-in-Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and to start this at the same time as Ryan Wigglesworth begins as Chief Conductor for the orchestra. The BBC SSO has previously performed my works, not least the UK premiere of my Four Pieces for Orchestra at the Proms in 2005, and I have also had the great pleasure of working with Ryan in the past. So I am very much looking forward to this collaboration, starting with the UK premiere of my new orchestra piece, Vers le silence in November.”

In addition, Wigglesworth directs the world premieres of two BBC Commissions:  Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Cello Concerto, performed by former BBC Young Musician Laura van der Heijden and a new work from Jonathan Woolgar. There are more premieres from cellist Abel Selaocoe whose new BBC Co-Commission for himself and the orchestra is unveiled in March 2023; and from Principal Guest Conductor, Ilan Volkov, who will conduct the UK premieres of Øyvind Torvund’s Exotica album and Stefan Prins’s under_current with Yaron Deutsch on electric guitar. Volkov will also return to co-curate the Tectonics Glasgow festival of new and experimental music, now in its eleventh year, on 29 and 30 April 2023.

Associate Conductor, Alpesh Chauhan, willrally the BBC SSO in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade in Aberdeen and Glasgow, and takes Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony to The Sage Gateshead; while Conductor Emeritus Sir Donald Runnicles conducts Mahler’s monumental Ninth Symphony in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow. The BBC SSO’s former Artist-in-Association, Matthias Pintscher, returns to Glasgow and Aberdeen with works by Schumann and Zemlinsky. 

Martyn Brabbins, who has been associated with the BBC SSO for three decades, marks the Vaughan Williams 150th anniversary with a performance of the Fifth Symphony and conducts the composer’s score for Scott of the Antarctic alongside a special screening of the film (Saturday 26 November). Brabbins also makes his SSO debut as a composer with a short work written for two of the orchestra’s Principal Violas, to be premiered with another by Sir James MacMillan, as part of an afternoon concert of overlooked Scottish works (20 April 2023). 

A number of conductors make their BBC SSO debuts this Season including Kristiina Poska, Tabita Berglund and Anu Tali and the orchestra is delighted to welcome back Hannu Lintu, Joana Carneiro, Michael Sanderling and Teresa Riveiro Böhm.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason takes up a mini residency in the orchestra’s Afternoon Performance Series playing works by Dohnányi and Prokofiev, while Pablo Ferrández makes two appearances in the Glasgow Thursday Night Series with works by Bloch and Richard Strauss. Other guest soloists  include oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy, violinists Elina Vähälä and Rosanne Philippens, pianists Zlata Chochieva and Denis Kozhukhin, clarinettist Robert Plane, and sopranos Elizabeth Llewellyn and Sophie Bevan.          

The BBC Singers make two Scottish appearances, singing Messiaen’s O sacrum convivium and joining the orchestra for Daphnis and Chloé before returning in January 2023 with Bach’s Magnificat as well as works by Stravinsky, including his Symphony of Psalms.

As ever the orchestra’s festive concerts include Christmas at the Movies in Glasgow and Christmas Classics in Aberdeen, both with conductor Roderick Dunk and longstanding presenter and audience favourite Jamie MacDougall.   

Dominic Parker, Director, BBC SSO says: “It is brilliant to be able to offer our audiences a full season of performances again after the disruption of the last two years. And it is doubly exciting to be welcoming Ryan Wigglesworth as our new Chief Conductor. Ryan is a compelling musician – whether as conductor, composer or pianist – and his warmth towards our players will be evident in all the varied programmes he’s bringing to audiences across Scotland.”

The majority of concerts will be recorded for BBC Radio 3, with some broadcast live, and some filmed to watch for free on BBC iPlayer.  Further Scottish and UK performance dates will be announced in the coming weeks.     

Ryan Wigglesworth succeeds Thomas Dausgaard who has held the position of Chief Conductor since 2016 and who continues in the post until the autumn of 2022.      

Booking for Aberdeen and Edinburgh opens at 10am on Thursday 5 May at bbc.co.uk/bbcsso

Booking for Subscription Packages for the Glasgow Thursday Night Series opens on Monday 9 May at www.bbc.co.uk/ssosubscriptions

General booking for Glasgow, including for Afternoon Performances, opens Monday 30 May 2022.              

Full details of the Season can be found at bbc.co.uk/bbcsso from5 May 2022

Glasgow 2022/23 Brochure can be accessed here

Aberdeen 2022/23 Brochure is available here

Edinburgh 2022/23 Brochure can be read here