THE festive period is a busy time for many of Scotland’s arts organisations. Christmas and New Year is an opportunity for our performing arts companies to bid a warm welcome to loyal patrons, reacquaint themselves with old friends and, perhaps most importantly, attract new audiences.
There can be few, if any, Scottish companies for whom this is truer than the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO). The orchestra has an impressively diverse programme – comprised of reinvigorated favourites and a new offering – lined up for the winter season.
When I catch up with the orchestra’s chief executive Alistair Mackie, I find him more than satisfied with the festive fare he and his colleagues have programmed. He is, quite rightly, happy with the balance of the company’s winter schedule.
Things get started in earnest on December 4, with the opening performance of the RSNO’s much-loved Yuletide show The Night Before Christmas at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh. The production – which goes on to play the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow the following weekend – brings the orchestra, under the baton of Ellie Slorach, together with Children’s Classic Concerts, the RSNO Children’s Chorus and the Manor School of Ballet.
No sooner has the orchestra presented that family show, than it is touring its ever-popular Christmas Concert to Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh (December 15 to 18). As ever, the show incorporates the beautiful animated film of the late, great Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman.
The Christmas Concert performances will have an added frisson this year as the guest narrator of The Snowman will be none other than Aled Jones. Although, famously, Jones was not the original singer of the film’s best loved song Walking in the Air (that honour goes to the acclaimed opera singer Peter Auty), the Welshman shot to fame for his chart-topping boyhood performance of the number in 1985.
This much-loved part of the RSNO’s repertoire is, says Mackie, “a great way to get new audiences. It’s a great way for our regular audiences to bring along their kids or their grandkids. It’s become a real family occasion.”
If the chief executive’s memory serves, this is the 20th year of the Christmas Concert. “It’s great to have Aled Jones,” he adds. “He’s a great presenter, and he has a unique history with the piece.”
Ever mindful of the need to innovate in its constant quest to engage with young audiences and families, the RSNO is adding a new show to its Christmas repertoire this year. Following on from the success of its schools production Gaspard’s Foxtrot, the orchestra is presenting a new, festive tale about the titular adventurous fox.
Gaspard’s Christmas (which plays in Edinburgh on December 23 and Glasgow on Christmas Eve) boasts narration by Classic FM presenter and author Zeb Soanes, a musical score by Jonathan Dove and live drawing on the big screen by celebrated illustrator James Mayhew. Audiences can expect a heart-warming, very contemporary Christmas story, as well as popular festive songs such as When Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney and Jingle Bells.
Mackie is understandably proud of the fact that Gaspard’s Foxtrot has been seen by 108,000 Scottish schoolchildren. In the best traditions of music for young audiences, each of the characters in the show is associated with a different instrument in the orchestra.
For example, the fox himself is represented by a bassoon. The cat is, appropriately enough, a clarinet. “We were so thrilled with the first Gaspard that we commissioned Jonathan Dove to write a second one,” the chief executive tells me.
The show is based on a Christmas book that was published just last month. Mackie loves this story by Soanes and Mayhew.
“The animals find this homeless guy and they think he’s Santa Claus,” he explains. “They begin to worry that they’re not going to get their Christmas presents.
“So, they take him to a shelter and get him sorted out, and, slowly, it dawns on them that he’s not Santa Claus. It’s a beautifully written story.”
The show is, Mackie explains, “our biggest commission of the year by a long way. It’s the biggest investment we’ve made in a piece of new work”.
“We’ve done that because we’ve seen how successful the original [Gaspard show] was at engaging kids all over Scotland.”
As if that full-on Christmas programme wasn’t enough, the orchestra returns in the New Year with its annual performance of Handel’s Messiah at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on January 2.
The RSNO Chorus conducted by Nicholas McGegan is joined by soprano Mhairi Lawson, countertenor William Towers, tenor Jamie MacDougall and bass-baritone Stephan Loges in performing Handel’s timeless classic.
Finally, between January 6 and 14, the orchestra travels to Dumfries and Galloway, Inverness and numerous places in-between with its Viennese Gala. With music by Johann Strauss and his contemporaries, the concert, which is conducted by David Niemann, aims to evoke of the magic of the famous New Year’s Day concert in Vienna with such well known pieces as the overture to Die Fledermaus, On the Beautiful Blue Danube and the Thunder and Lightning Polka.
Mackie remembers his late father enjoying the concert every year.
“It was one of my Dad’s favourites,” he says. “It has an enduring fascination for people. It’s just feelgood music. Even if you don’t get up and dance, something inside you gets lit up.
“I have images of Vienna on New Year’s Day. It captures that moment and that time, it’s such evocative music.”
Ultimately, for Mackie, this year’s festive programme is proof positive that we are, as a society, despite our troubles, emerging from the darkest days of the pandemic.
“The big thing for me is just people doing stuff together again.
“Going out and sharing experiences with other human beings, because we all went digital, we’ve all been on our sofas watching TV. It’s not the same as shared experience.
“Music is community. Music is about engagement and communication. If you don’t have folk around you, it feels different.”
Details of the RSNO’s festive programme can be found at: www.rsno.org.uk
