The Edinburgh International Festival has unveiled its classical music programme for 2015, featuring a celebration of its own festival chorus, and appearances by a host of Scottish stars including the debut of leading percussionist Colin Currie.

 

The festival (EIF), under its new director Fergus Linehan, launched the concerts and recitals programme separately from the rest of the festival line up for the first time.

Booking for all festival performances will open following the full programme launch on 18 March, a programme which is likely to also feature some rock, electronic and folk music.

The festival is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, and the Usher Hall season features performances from the San Francisco Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Budapest Festival

Orchestra alongside concerts by Mitsuko Uchida, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Lang Lang and Diana Damrau.

Nicola Benedetti, the leading Scottish violinist, will be performing Glazunov's Violin Concerto at the Usher Hall with the Oslo Philharmonic.

Currie is the soloist in the "energetic, metal-focused" Second Percussion Concerto by James MacMillan, which receives its Scottish premiere on August 14 at the Usher Hall.

Indeed Scottish orchestras and artists are, the festival says, to play a central role in the music programme, including performances from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Scottish Opera, as well as Donald Runnicles, MacMillan, Benedetti and Currie.

Young performers include Anne-Sophie Mutter's the European Union Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Choir of Scotland and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

The programme also includes the world premiere of Andre Previn's Nonet.

BBC Radio 3 will broadcast 13 Queen's Hall concerts live during the Festival and additional concerts in the autumn.

Established Festival stalwarts including Iván Fischer, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Andrew Davis, William Christie, Valery Gergiev and Donald Runnicles all return in 2015, joined by Gianandrea Noseda, Robin Ticciati and Vasily Petrenko wielding the baton.

The opening concert at the Usher Hall will feature the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Brahms Runnicles and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus.

The Usher Hall series closes with The Rite of Spring performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev on 30 August.

The celebration of the festival's chorus will include performances of Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Missa solemnis and Berlioz's Grande messe des morts.

The celebrated Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, who has been performing and revisiting Beethoven's Piano Sonatas since the 1970s, will, in nine concerts, y play all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas.

Linehan said: "The flame which lit Edinburgh's reputation as the world's festival city was the international standard of concert programming and the unique qualities of the Usher Hall.

"Launching the classical music concerts ahead of the full programme, allows us to shine a light on the scale of work and quality of artistry these musicians will bring to Edinburgh this year.'

"Over the past 68 years relationships have been forged between artists and festival goers that have proved lasting and profound.

"Audiences have flocked year after year to artists such as Claudio Abaddo and Charles Mackerras and in return have been rewarded with complex and far reaching musical experiences.

"I want to continue to develop deep and rewarding relationships with musicians such as Ivan Fischer and Andrew Davies while exploring artists new to the Festival who have so much to give our audiences."

He added: "In sharing the classical music season for Festival 2015 I am sharing the first step in a line of programming that will evolve over the next five years."

Councillor Steve Cardownie, Edinburgh's Festivals and Events Champion at City of Edinburgh Council, said: "The Usher Hall has an international reputation for its outstanding acoustics and the venue has staged concerts with some of the biggest names in music for a century.

"It is where it all began for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Council-managed concert hall has been home to the classical music programme since the Festival's inception in 1947.

"This year, we expect tens of thousands of concert goers to visit and experience the sounds of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh Festival Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra amongst others. It's sure to be another busy and impressive programme."

In the programme, Benedetti says of the Glazunov work: "The interesting thing about the Concerto is its deep

Romanticism - I think Glazunov was one of the last composers to freely and unashamedly write in that style, or with such innocence.

"One of the beauties of it is Glazunov's use of the violin's lower register, how he manages to get a deep, rich tone out of

the violin, which to me is reminiscent of some of the great Russian singers.

"It's actually an incredibly difficult Concerto to play - I know lots of violinists who avoid it."

A free public event will also form part of the festival.

Plans for the event are still being developed and will be announced on 18 March.

The event will take place on Friday 7 August at the Usher Hall - outside and inside the major venue.

It is being conceived as a celebration of the Chorus in their 50th anniversary year.

It is part of the Mr Linehan's plans to "mark the beginning of the Festival in a large civic way, as we do the end with the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert, this year and into the future."