Live Carmina Burana Fri 12 – Sat 13 March

Dresden Philharmonic Composer in Residence 2025/26 & Artistic Director of The Cumnock Tryst.

Sir James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful composers and performs internationally as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music, and is distinctive for its rhythmic excitement and powerful emotional communication.

MacMillan first became internationally recognised after the extraordinary success of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. His prolific output has since been performed and broadcast around the world. His major works include percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which has received close to 500 performances, a cello concerto for Mstislav Rostropovich and five symphonies. Recent major works include his Percussion Concerto No.2 for Colin Currie, Violin Concerto No.2 for Nicola Benedetti and his Symphony No.5, written for The Sixteen, which was premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2019 as part of a major feature to celebrate his 60th birthday year. Several new works for chorus and orchestra have been premiered in recent seasons including his Christmas Oratorio premiered by the London Philharmonic in 2021 and Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a celebration of the power of music, premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony and the Hallé Orchestra in 2023/24. Most recently, a new Concerto for Orchestra was co-commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia and Singapore Symphony.

MacMillan enjoys a successful career as conductor of his own music alongside a range of contemporary and standard repertoire, and is praised for the composer’s insight he brings to each score. He has conducted orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hungarian National Philharmonic St Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic until 2013 and Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic until 2009.

In the 2025/26 season, MacMillan will serve as the Dresden Philharmonic’s Composer- in-Residence, and as part of this will conduct the orchestra in a choral-orchestral programme including his 1989 work Cantos Sagrados. Other highlights of the season include conducting his Christmas Oratorio with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and concerts with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Iceland Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Flemish Radio Choir and the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra. A new oratorio, Angels Unawares, will be premiered by The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia in Rome and London.

MacMillan founded music festival The Cumnock Tryst in October 2014, which takes place annually in his native Ayrshire. In 2024, the Festival celebrated its tenth anniversary and launched an International Summer-School for Composers, directed by MacMillan and open to young composers worldwide. The Cumnock Tryst won the Sky Arts Award for Classical Music in 2024, and the Series and Events Award at the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards.

MacMillan has conducted many of his own works on disc for Chandos, BIS and BMG. A notable highlight is a series on Challenge Records, including MacMillan’s violin concerto A Deep but Dazzling Darkness and percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel with Colin Currie and the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie. His release on Harmonia Mundi, conducting Britten Sinfonia in works including his Oboe Concerto, won the 2016 BBC Music Magazine Award. In 2017, The Sixteen’s recording of MacMillan’s Stabat Mater was nominated for a Gramophone Award and won the Diapason d’Or Choral Award.

MacMillan was awarded a CBE in 2004 and a Knighthood in 2015. He was appointed a Fellow of the Ivors Academy in 2024.

The works of Sir James MacMillan are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

See Sir James MacMillan conduct Carmina Burana with the RSNO on 12 and 13 March 2027.

Norwegian soprano Caroline Wettergreen has established herself on the international stage for her captivating coloratura and vivid stage presence.

In the 2025/26 season, Wettergreen returns to the Opéra national de Paris to make her role debut as Madame Mao in John Adams’s Nixon in China conducted by Kent Nagano, and returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper to sing Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos conducted by Daniele Rustioni. On the concert stage, Wettergreen will join the Trondheim Symphoniorkester for a programme of Mozart arias conducted by Magnus Fryklund.

Last season, Wettergreen performed the role of Ivy/McGuffie in the world premiere of Miroslav Srnka’s Voice Killer at Theater an der Wien conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear and directed by Cordula Däuper. Elsewhere, Wettergreen performed the role of Hermione in Manfred Trojahn’s Orest at The Royal Danish Opera, made her debut as Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at Opéra de Rouen Normandie, and Olympia in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann at Staatsoper Hamburg.

Wettergreen has become a regular presence across many of the major European houses, with notable appearances at the Royal Ballet & Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Opéra national de Paris, The Norwegian Opera & Ballet and Glyndebourne Festival. At home in contemporary repertoire, Wettergreen has given performances of Ophelia in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, Princesse in Abrahamsen’s Snedronningen at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Hermione in Orest at The Royal Danish Opera, and Ariel in Adès’s The Tempest in her Wiener Staatsoper debut. Elsewhere, Wettergreen has sung Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the Bayerische Staatsoper, Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto for The Norwegian Opera & Ballet, and La Fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon for Opéra national de Paris.

In huge demand for her interpretation of Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Wettergreen has sung the role in eleven productions, including at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Opéra national de Paris, The Norwegian Opera & Ballet, Royal Ballet & Opera, Glyndebourne Festival and in her North American debut for Canadian Opera Company.

As a concert artist, she has since appeared with the Bayerische Staatsorchester for the world premiere of Abrahamsen’s Zwei Inger-Christensen-Lieder (cond. Kirill Petrenko), with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 (cond. Markus Stenz), with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for Rolf Gupta’s Earth’s Song (cond. Peter Szilvay), and at the Bergen International Festival for a recital of Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Bernstein and Strauss with pianist Christian Grøvlen. A graduate of The Norwegian Academy of Music and The Royal Danish Academy of Music Wettergreen made her debut at The Norwegian Opera & Ballet whilst still a student, appearing as Adelaide in Berg’s Lulu in a production by Stefan Herheim. In 2018, Wettergreen was the recipient of the Equinor Classical Music Award.

See Caroline Wettergreen perform Carmina Burana with the RSNO on 12 and 13 March 2027.

Described as a voice “worthy of the greatest virtuosos,” British-Indian tenor Caspar Singh was Principal Mozart Tenor at the Komische Oper Berlin from 2022 to 2024, having previously been an ensemble member of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. He trained at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, completing his training at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opernstudio.  

Singh’s 2025/26 opera highlights include company debuts at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona as Pásek in Barrie Kosky’s production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen conducted by Josep Pons, and at English National Opera in the title role of Britten’s Albert Herring directed by Antony McDonald and conducted by Daniel Cohen. He also returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper as Jaquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio and to Glyndebourne Festival Opera as both Apollo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos.

Last season, Singh made house debuts at both Malmö Opera and Norwegian Opera as Ferrando in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and at Grange Park Opera as Shah Jahan, fifth Mughal emperor, in the world premiere of sitarist Nishat Khan’s opera Taj Mahal directed by Stephen Medcalf. For the 2024 Glyndebourne Festival he sang Ein junger Seeman/Ein Hirt in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, having made his festival debut the previous year as Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He revisited the role of Lysander for Garsington Opera in 2024, including a semi-staged performance at the Royal Albert Hall which marked his BBC Proms debut. 

Singh’s roles at the Komische Oper included Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zaubeflöte, Ferrando, Hyllus in Handel’s Hercules, Dalands in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff and Laerte in Thomas’s Hamlet. He has also performed Male Chorus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with the Kammerakademie Potsdam. 

Roles during his time as an ensemble member of the Bayerische Staatsoper included Gherardo in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Pásek in The Cunning Little Vixen, Arturo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Dritter Knappe in Wagner’s Parsifal, Hirte in Tristan und Isolde, Dominik in Haas’s Thomas, Wilhelm Meister in Thomas’s Mignon, Edmondo in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Borsa in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Der Haushofmeister bei Faninal in Stauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Scaramuccio in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the Prince in Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen, Oberpriester Poseidons in Mozart’s Idomeneo and Augustin Moser in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. 

Singh’s recent concert highlights include Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas at the 2025 First Night of The Proms with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo, the role of Tony in a concert performance of Bernstein’s West Side Story at Auditorio Kursaal, San Sebastián with the Basque National Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell, and a staged production of Mozart’s Requiem with the Rundfunkchor Berlin conducted by Gijs Leenaars. He has performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with both the ORF Radio-Sinfonieorchester Wien conducted by Tobias Wögerer and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bassem Akiki, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Berlin Philharmonie with both the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Simon Halsey and the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Kirill Petrenko, First Priest in Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero, again with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko, and Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Clemens Schuldt. 

A keen recitalist, Singh has performed Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin on a UK recital tour with Sholto Kynoch for Oxford Lieder and appeared in at the Munich Opera Festival performing works including Britten’s Winter Words and Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. 

See Caspar Singh perform Carmina Burana with the RSNO on 12 and 13 March 2027.

American baritone Edward Nelson is an alumnus of both the Merola Opera Program and the Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera. He was winner of the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup and recently named among OperaWire’s Top Ten Rising Stars of 2025. A native of California, Nelson is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and received further training at the Tanglewood Music Center.

Nelson opens his 2025/26 season with a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Tracy Bacon in the Met premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. He also appears as Ponchel in a new production of Kevin Puts’s Silent Night for Houston Grand Opera. In Europe, Nelson makes his company debut at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie creating the title role of the world premiere of Benoît Mernier’s opera Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street directed by Vincent Boussard. He also sings Dandini in a semi-staged concert performance of Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock and Pelléas in a concert performance of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at Teatro Colón A Coruña with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia conducted by José Miguel Pérez Sierra.

Last season Nelson made notable debuts for Teatro Regio Torino as Marquis d’Hérigny in a new production of Auber’s Manon Lescaut, for Dallas Opera as Pelleas, for Boston Lyric Opera as Billy Bigelow in Anne Bogart’s new production of Carousel and for Opera Theatre of St. Louis as Eisentstein in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. He also returned to Seville’s Teatro de la Maestranza as Oreste in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Other important company debuts of recent seasons include the title role in Philip Glass’ Orphée for Teatro Real Madrid and Dandini for both the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Semperoper Dresden in Damiano Michieletto’s production of La Cenerentola. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Terence Blanchard’s Champion, which won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.

Nelson made his European debut in 2017 at the Norwegian National Opera in the title role of a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande and later returned to the company as Dandini in La Cenerentola and Figaro in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He has since performed Pelléas at Ópera de Oviedo, Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, and Des Moines Metro Opera. Other opera engagements include his return to Washington National Opera as Don Andrès in Offenbach’s La Périchole, the Barber in Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau for Bard Summerscape, his debut for Opera Philadelphia in Ne Quittez Pas: A Reimagined ‘La voix humaine’, performing songs of Francis Poulenc alongside Patricia Racette; Il Barbierie di Siviglia at the Vancouver Opera, title role in Don Giovanni for Palm Beach Opera, Maximillian in Bernstein’s Candide for the Washington National Opera, the Count in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Detroit Opera, title role in Thomas’s Hamlet for West Edge Opera, Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème for Cincinnati Opera, and a staged performance of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at Chicago’s Harris Theater, in collaboration with Jessica Lang Dance.

An alumnus of both the Merola Opera Program and the Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera, Nelson has made over 70 appearances on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House. In his final season as an Adler Fellow, he sang mainstage performances of Malatesta in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and roles in the world premiere of Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber. He has since returned as the Bosun in Britten’s Billy Budd.

On the concert platform, Nelson made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony and Kurt Weill’s Four Walt Whitman Songs. He has also sung Sea Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony and performed Orff’s Carmina Burana with both the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Mobile Symphony. He has given a recital of Schubert lieder at the Four Arts Society in Palm Beach, and sung both Schaunard in La Bohème and Papageno in The Magic Flute with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra at Boston’s Symphony Hall.

Nelson is a decorated international vocal competitor. In addition to winning the 2020 Glyndebourne Cup, he was a finalist and encouragement award winner in Operalia 2021 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. He was awarded Third Prize at the 2021 Ottavio Ziino Competition in Rome and is the recipient of grants from the Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Shoshana Foundation. He was a National Semi-Finalist in the 2013 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

See Edward Nelson perform Carmina Burana with the RSNO on 12 and 13 March 2027.

The RSNO Chorus performs in around six different programmes in up to twenty concerts across Scotland with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra each year. The RSNO Chorus has also had great success in recording with the Orchestra. Its recordings, amongst others, of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, conducted by Neeme Jӓrvi, and Holst’s The Planets, conducted by David Lloyd-Jones, have both attracted high critical acclaim.

In addition to its commitment to the Orchestra, the RSNO Chorus performs independently and has been invited to perform with orchestras in many parts of the world, establishing an international status and touring to Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Israel, Germany, Belfast, Australia, Trondheim and most recently, Amsterdam and Prague. In 2018 it performed Britten’s War Requiem with the RSNO at the BBC Proms.

The RSNO Chorus evolved from a choir formed in 1843 to sing the first full performance of Handel’s Messiah in Scotland. Today, it is one of the most successful choruses in the UK. In recent years, it has performed practically every work in the standard choral repertoire along with contemporary works by renowned composers, including John Adams, Magnus Lindberg, Howard Shore and James MacMillan.

Stephen Doughty has been Chorus Director of the RSNO Chorus since the start of the 2022:23 Season. Since his arrival the Chorus has seen an influx of new members, and an abundance of varied and critically acclaimed performances, including Verdi’s Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem, Bruckner’s E Minor Mass and the Scottish premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio. He has also directed the Chorus in new and imaginative programmes in their own right, including Rheinberger’s glorious Mass in E flat for double choir, and concerts with percussion and organ featuring Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, the European premiere of McIntyre’s Missa Brevis and Ives’ final major choral work, Psalm 90.  Stephen’s previous 12-year tenure as Chorus Master of Belfast Philharmonic Choir included a number of world premieres, most significantly James Whitbourn’s The Seven Heavens and Philip Hammond’s Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic, performed exactly 100 years since the liner went down, and further European premieres of both Stuart Scott’s Requiem Brevis, which saw the 100-strong choir separated into eight choirs spaced around the audience, and Christopher Marshall’s Earthsong.

Stephen particularly enjoys working with amateur singers, not least leading regular singing days frequently involving up to 800 amateur singers. He was Musical Director of Edinburgh Bach Choir for 7 years and has enjoyed the directing the Garleton Singers for over 30 years, performing with them recently at the Lammermuir Festival.

Stephen plays harpsichord/organ continuo and orchestral piano and has given frequent organ recitals, including several on the grand Mulholland Organ in the Ulster Hall, Belfast. He is also in demand as an arranger and orchestrator, with a large portfolio of work particularly for young voices. He has produced a plethora of arrangements of the music of pianist Christopher Norton, including two publications of piano duets and a suite for wind sextet, and has received commissions from Children’s Classic Concerts, the Ulster Orchestra and the RSNO. Commissions from the BBC have seen his work being performed on BBC Alba and at the Last Night of the Proms, and his pieces feature on several recordings, including with the RSNO Chorus.

Finally, Stephen is an Examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

Founded in 1978 by Jean Kidd, the RSNO Youth Chorus (formerly known as the RSNO Junior Chorus) is one of the leading children and youth choirs in the UK, with over 400 members aged seven to eighteen. It has built up a considerable reputation singing under some of the world’s most distinguished conductors and appearing on radio and television.

Patrick Barrett is a conductor specialising in choral music and opera. He is currently Chorus Director of the RSNO Youth Choruses, Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company, Irish Youth Training Choir and the award-winning Farnham Youth Choirs.

Recent work has included conducting the RSNO Youth Chorus alongside soloists Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Benjamin Grosvenor and Nicola Benedetti in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s All-Star Gala performances, and preparing them for the recording of Jonathan Dove’s Gaspard’s Christmas, which is available on all streaming services. Over the summer, he led FYC to success at the Hull International Choral Competition and the International Choir Competition in Provence, winning the Youth Choirs of Equal Voices and Children’s Choir categories respectively, and will be competing with them in the World Choir Games 2024 in New Zealand. In the past year, he has also premiered a number of new works including Jonathan Brigg’s The Sapling with the ROH Youth Opera Company and pieces by Emma O’Halloran and DJ and producer R.Kitt with IYTC. This summer, he took up the position of Guest Conductor with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain’s Girls’ Choir and has been invited back for 2024.

Much of Patrick’s work revolves around championing young people within choral music and, for the past two years, he has been invited to address the annual conference of the Post Primary Music Teachers Association in Ireland. His work in this area began as a Trainee Music Leader with Spitalfields Music between 2015-16 and he is now firmly established as a music educator, having delivered projects for organisations including the BBC Singers, Sonoro, The Sixteen, Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, and Ark Schools.

In opera, Patrick works with many of the UK’s major companies including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Garsington Opera. For the ROH, he is the Musical Director of the Youth Opera Company, preparing them for main stage performances of Verdi’s Otello under Sir Antonio Pappano and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel under Sebastian Weigle, and conducting them in the world premieres of specially commissioned works including Lewis Murphy’s A Different Story in the Linbury Theatre. He is also a regular leader on their Create and Sing programme, working with secondary school teachers to stage specially-devised operas in classrooms across the country. For the ENO, he has prepared the children’s chorus for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen under Martyn Brabbins and Bizet’s Carmen under Kerem Hasan. For Garsington Opera, he has worked on a specially-commissioned community opera called Dalia by Roxanna Panufnik as the Youth Chorus Director.

Patrick was previously the conductor of the University of Birmingham’s Upper Voices Choir and Brockham Choral Society.

Born in Huddersfield in 1964, Paul Whittaker has been profoundly deaf all his life yet pursued a career as a musician. A pianist and organist, he has a music degree from Wadham College, Oxford, a postgraduate performance diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music and holds ALCM and ARCO diplomas.

In 1988, he founded Music and the Deaf, a charity to help deaf people enjoy music, which he ran for 27 years. In 2007, he was awarded an OBE for Services to Music and he also holds honorary degrees from the University of Huddersfield and Open University.

For the past 13 years, Paul has been working with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on their Feel the Music project, visiting many different countries around the world introducing deaf children to orchestral music. In 2023, he was invited to work with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin on a project involving deaf children and adults and in 2024 will work with an ensemble in Malmo on a similar project.

Since May 2015 he has been working freelance as a motivational speaker, signed song performer and workshop leader, and currently runs several signing choirs across the UK.

Paul has signed many musical shows and concerts, and performed with The King’s Singers, Tenebrae, Dunedin Consort, VOCES8, the Royal Liverpool, Royal Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Halle orchestras, with Children’s Classic Concerts and at many festivals, including the Cumnock Tryst and BBC Proms. He is delighted to be returning to the RSNO after joining them last November for James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio.

See Paul Whittaker perform Ode to Joy on 12 and 13 June 2026.