The Closing Concert

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus are joined by three vocal soloists for this powerful finale to the Usher Hall programme.

Conductor Karina Canellakis, renowned for delivering emotionally charged performances, takes on feats of musical storytelling in this narrative programme. Excerpts from Richard Wagner’s influential opera Tristan und Isolde capture two lovers at the beginning and end of their doomed love affair. Alexander Scriabin’s symphonic Poème de l’extase, or Poem of Ecstasy, is an immersive experience of delicately layered melodic motifs.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s choral symphony The Bells, inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same name, was one of the composer’s personal favourites. This monumental choral symphony recalls the ‘gladly chiming and mournfully tolling’ bells of Rachmaninoff ’s childhood, which filled his head as he wrote.

Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
Scriabin Poème de l’extase
Rachmaninoff The Bells

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Karina Canellakis Conductor

Olga Kulchynska Soprano
David Butt Philip Tenor
Alexander Vinogradov Bass

Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Aidan Oliver Chorus Director

Sopranos 1
Jan Brownhill, Lesley Bruce, Simona Cenci, Annette Chapman, Lisa Dawson, Maggie Gilchrist, Jenni Halliday, Clare Hewitt, Lorna Holl, Jill Kerr, Fiona McBryde, Louise McGregor, Morag Michael, Jennifer Swan, Karen Traill, Lesley Walker

Sopranos 2
Emma Aitken, Anne Backhouse, Susan Bowden, Rhona Brown, Deborah Buckingham, Kathryn Coad, Margaret Cumming, Rosamund Davidson, Dorothy Fairweather, Aileen Fraser, Carol Haley, Leila Inglis, Lesley Johnston, Maureen Kaye, Maggie Kinnes, Natsuko MacArthur, Janet McKenzie, Kathy Miller, Janette Myles, April Parkins, Ros Sutherland, Kathleen White

Altos 1
Julie Aitken, Barbara Brodie, Valerie Bryan, Nancy Crook, Susan Crosby, Catherine Dunlop, Kirstie Fairnie, Emma Gosling, Rona Gray, Carol Leddy, Kirsten Leggatt, Jane MacLeod, Kate Mason, Frances McGlashan, Linda McLauchlan, Fiona Milligan, Megan Rourke, Nicola Stock, Mary Taylor, Ruth Townsend, Kirsty Weaver, Brenda Williamson

Altos 2
Moira Allingham, Jeanette Bell, Anna Borbely, Wendy Colquhoun, Ann Firth, Mary Gordon, Tori Graham, Anne Grindley, Linda Hunter, Jan Livesley, Carol Madden, Frances McDevitt, Catriona McDonald, Marita McMillan, Janette Morrison, Lucy O'Leary, Penny Stone

Tenors 1
David Arulanantham, Malcom Bennett, Joanna Bleau, Brenden Glen, Richard Hellewell, Matthew McKinney, Alex Rankine, Mike Towers, Eric Turnbull

Tenors 2
Richard Allison, Andrew Binnian, John Burnside, Bruce Davis, Graham Drew, Guy Johnson, Sam Leggett, Martin McKean, James White

Basses 1
Felix Boecking, Derek Calder, Peter Cannell, Malcolm Crosby, Martin Gray, John Halliday, Nick Harding, David Hewitson, Christopher Howarth, Andrew Hyder, Ivor Klayman, Luis Loaiza Isler, Andrew Lyons, David Mack-Smith, Tom Marshall, Andrew Moore, Graham Naysmith, Roger Robertson, Graham Scott

Basses 2
Mark Adams, Ken Allen, Philip Coad, Callum Hay, Peter Hillier, Stephen Lipton, Sandy Matheson, Jack McChesney, John McLeod, Chris Morris, Andrew Scott, Martin Scott, Mike Smith, David Traill