• Strauss’s Metamorphosen is centrepiece of 2006 Christmas candlelight concert tour
• 9 young musicians from the RSAMD join the Scottish Ensemble for the performance
• First half of concert features waltzes and dances by Brahms and Dvorak

“There are Christmas concerts and there are Scottish Ensemble Christmas concerts”  - The Telegraph


The Scottish Ensemble’s 2006 Christmas candlelight concert tour will once again see the acclaimed musicians giving a platform to young talent. Nine leading string players from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) will join the professional players in a performance of Richard Strauss’s soul searing Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, a work which was premiered sixty years ago at the end of the 2nd World War. The work forms the second half of the concert. The tour opens in Dundee on Monday 11 December and runs until Saturday 16th December with concerts in Perth, Aberdeen, Strathpeffer, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The collaboration with the RSAMD marks the third in an ongoing series of partnerships that see the Scottish Ensemble uniquely give a platform to young musicians to play alongside their professional counterparts in a major concert tour. The initiative was inaugurated in 2004 when RSAMD string players began a series of workshops with the Scottish Ensemble, which led to performances of Tippet’s Fantasia on a theme of Corelli to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. This was followed in late 2005 by a collaboration with the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland in which 12 young musicians joined the Scottish Ensemble and world-renowned cellist, Raphael Wallfisch, in performances of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil.

Commenting on the importance of this commitment Jonathan Morton, Artistic Director of the Scottish Ensemble, said:

“It is vital that we support our young musicians, giving them as many opportunities as possible to develop their skills and also inspiring them to look to future careers in classical music. The Scottish Ensemble continues to be committed to giving young string players the unique opportunity to perform in concerts alongside professional players and this year we will welcome nine leading students from the RSAMD to join us in performances of Richard Strauss’s beautiful Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings.”

Peter Lissauer, Head of Strings at the RSAMD, added

“The Scottish Ensemble is the only professional group to actually offer young musicians the chance to perform alongside professional players. This unique opportunity is invaluable to the students as an introduction to the rigorous preparation required for professional performance. It also enables them to be part of music making of the highest order performing challenging repertoire.

Following the “Tippet” project a number of the RSAMD players have gone on to work as professional musicians playing as extras with leading orchestras. For violinist Heather Kennedy the experience helped her develop as a musician. She said:

“Playing with the Scottish Ensemble was a remarkable experience that encouraged me enormously as a musician. It gave me confidence and I learned both to experiment with my playing and to emulate what was happening in the music-making of the professional players. Playing in a small ensemble, and especially without a conductor, was hugely challenging, but equally rewarding and above all it was fantastic to be up on the stage playing alongside musicians whose work I had for so long admired. “

The nine musicians from the RSAMD who will join the Scottish Ensemble are violinists Go Eun Choi from South Korea, Stewart Webster from Kirkcaldy, and Ian Watson from South Africa; viola players Veronika Toth from Hungary and Emma Stevenson from Glasgow; cellists Barbara Misiewicz from Poland and Stephane Lengrand from France; and Double Bass players Edward Lucas from St Andrews and Lesley-Ann Smith from Prestwick.

Metamorphosen is among the most personal and deep-felt works in Strauss's vast catalogue. The event that motivated its composition was the destruction of a large part of Munich by allied bombers. By the time of the premiere in January 1946 the world was at piece, but Strauss’s homeland lay in ruins giving an added poignancy to the performance. Although he began work on the piece immediately after the Munich bombings it was a commission from Swiss conductor Paul Sacher (a musician, the centenary of whose birth is celebrated this year, who was responsible for commissioning many seminal works of the 20th century including Bartók's Divertimento and Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Stravinsky's Concerto for String Orchestra in D; and Honegger's second & fourth symphonies) that saw the work come to fruition.

By contrast to the Metamorphosen the first half of the Christmas concert programme comprises a mix of light-hearted waltzes and dances by Brahms and Dvorak, and Richard Strauss’s “piece within a piece” – the sextet that opens’ his opera Capriccio.


For further information on the Scottish Ensemble visit www.scottishensemble.co.uk 

TOUR 11 – 16 December 2006



Jonathan Morton Director


Dvorak 2 Waltzes
Brahms Liebesliederwaltzer
R Strauss Sextet from Capriccio
R Strauss Metamorphosen – with students from the RSAMD



Monday 11 December 2006 at 7.30pm
Marryat Hall, Dundee
Tickets priced £3-£14.50 (including concessions)
Box Office: 01382 434 941

Tuesday 12 December 2006 at 7.30pm
Perth Concert Hall
Tickets priced £3-£15 (including concessions)
Box Office: 01738 621 031

Wednesday 13 December 2006 at 7.30pm
Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen
Tickets priced £3-£14.50 (including concessions)
Box Office: 01224 641 122

Thursday 14 December 2006 at 8pm
Eden Court in Exile: Strathpeffer Pavilion
Tickets priced £3-£14.50 (including concessions)
Box Office: 01463 234 234

Friday 15 December 2006 at 7.45pm
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Tickets priced £3-£14.50 (including concessions)
Box Office: 0131 668 2019

Saturday 16 December 2006 at 7.30pm
City Halls, Glasgow
Tickets priced £3-£15 (including concessions)
Box Office: 0141 353 8000