Live Carmina Burana Fri 15 – Sat 16 November

Praised as a conductor of immense temperament, convincing with sureness, energy and the detailed power of her baton, Polish conductor Marzena Diakun has reached veteran status at a young age. Second Prize winner of two major international conducting competitions (Prague Spring Competition 2007 and Fitelberg Conducting Competition 2012), she focuses on orchestral and choral works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Shostakovich, as well as her country´s greatest composers – Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Karlowicz and Szymanowski. Sought after for her interpretations of the French and Bohemian masters, her performances are described as remarkably balanced, finely nuanced, and deeply felt, knowing how to dazzles with her mastery and the height of the gesture, and how to obtain from an orchestra density, expressiveness, and details.

The season 2024/25 will see her return to orchestras such as the Komische Oper Berlin and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and initiate new relationships with others like NDR-Sinfonieorchester Hannover, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Her newest recording of Brahms’ works for choir and orchestra (Label IBS) with Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid, of which she was Artistic Director and Principal Chief Conductor until the summer of 2024 has been greatly hailed by the press.

The new relationship with Ensemble Intercontemporain is the culmination of two decades of premiering and performing new works by numerous Spanish, Dutch, Austrian and Polish composers. Her recording, Polish Heroines of Music (Label PWM) is an exemplary model of her savoir-faire and commitment.

Herself a teacher and a mentor, she looks back on inspiration and support from great conductors such as Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez and Marin Alsop.

When did you join the RSNO?
I joined in May 2023.

Where are you from?
I was born in Sydney and grew up in Adelaide.

Where did you study?
At the Elder Conservatorium at Adelaide University, then the RNCM, Manchester and finally at the RAM in London.

What do you enjoy most about being in the RSNO?
Aside from working alongside talented colleagues everyday, I love that we get to perform in the most wonderful concert halls here in Scotland!

Tell us your favourite RSNO story/memory so far.
Performing Strauss ‘Ein Heldenleben’ to open my first full season with this band was incredible!

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not playing with the Orchestra?
I used to enjoy gardening but now that I’ve moved to a flat in Glasgow I’ve found myself fanatical about baking sourdough, thanks to Robin Wilson (violin) gifting me a wondrous starter for my birthday.

Do you have any hidden talents?
None that I’m aware of…

If you could have dinner with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be, and why?
I’d love to have a meal with the cellist Jacqueline du Pré so I can ask her lots of terrible cello questions and also the violin luthier and restorer René Morel to also geek out on sound adjustment and violin-making in general.

You’re stranded on a desert island. You’re allowed 3 CDs and 1 book. What would they be, and why?
I’d have to bring with me The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, it is an effective constant reminder to choose not to descend into madness. Recordings might include Dire Straits (1978), Jessye Norman’s Strauss ‘Four Last Songs’ and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack.

Having already gained wide acclaim for her performances on the operatic stage as well as the concert platform, Welsh singer Fflur Wyn has quickly established herself as one of the country’s foremost sopranos. She was recently elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the music profession so far.

Her operatic performances include Jemmy Guillaume Tell, Iphis Jephtha, Blonde Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando (Welsh National Opera); Pamina The Magic Flute, Alice Alice in Wonderland, Vivetta L’arlesiana, and the title role in Lakmé (Opera Holland Park); Malinka The Adventures of Mr Broucek (Grange Park Opera); Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro (La Monnaie); Lucia Rape of Lucretia (Potsdamer Winteroper); Esilena Rodrigo (Göttingen International Handel Festival); Governess Turn of the Screw (Mexico City); Celia Lucio Silla (Buxton Opera); Sophie Werther, Marzelline Fidelio, Susanna The Marriage of Figaro, Morgana Alcina, Servilia La Clemenza di Tito, Blue Fairy Pinocchio, Waldvogel Siegfried, Achsah Joshua, Gretel Hänsel und Gretel, Flora Turn of the Screw, Clerida Croesus, Giannetta L’elisir d’amore, Sophie Der Rosenkavalier, Fire/Nightingale/Princess L’enfant et les Sortileges and Trio Soprano Trouble in Tahiti (Opera North); Floriana in Leoncavallo’s Zazà (Opera Rara); Mimi in Offenbach’s Vert Vert (Garsington Opera); Michal Saul with the BBC Singers; and Celidora L’oca del Cairo with the London Mozart Players.

Fflur has worked with many great conductors and orchestras including Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Richard Armstrong, Harry Bicket and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Gabrieli Consort and The English Concert. Recent recitals include performances at Kings Place, St John’s Smith Square, Wilton’s Music Hall and The Howard Assembly Room.

In the 2022/23 season, Fflur sang Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice on the Opera North concert tour, and also for Chelsea Opera Group, Handel’s Messiah with the Norwegian Wind Ensemble, and the role of Nedda Pagliacci with the Cambridge Philharmonic, and 1st Niece Peter Grimes at Royal Danish Opera.

Born in Melbourne, the British-Australian character tenor Adrian Dwyer has appeared at many of the world’s greatest Opera Houses, gaining international recognition for his wide ranging vocal ability and vivid theatrical presence in works spanning from the 19th Century to the present day.

Engagements have taken him to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro Real (Madrid), Teatro Massimo (Palermo), Opernhaus Zürich, Dutch National Opera (Amsterdam), Welsh National Opera, the Israeli Opera, English National Opera, Opéra de Toulon, Scottish Opera, Irish National Opera, Cape Town Opera, Opera Queensland, Opera North, Birmingham Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, the State Opera of South Australia, as well as the Amsterdam, Edinburgh International and Aldeburgh Festivals.

Recent and future highlights include Mime Der Ring des Nibelungen for Longborough Festival Opera (and Das Rheingold in Singapore), Astrologer The Golden Cockerel, where he got immediately reinvited for the German premiere of Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, Almeric Iolanta with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brighella Ariadne auf Naxos for Opera North, the title role in the world premiere of The Life & Death of Alexander Litvinenko by Anthony Bolton at Grange Park Opera and the world premiere of Michael Gallen’s Elsewhere with Straymaker Opera and Music-Theatre Company.

In recent seasons he also performed D’Esperaudieu in Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park at the ROH Linbury Theatre with Music Theatre Wales, and returned to Opera Queensland as the Prince in John Adams’ A Flowering Tree, and to Welsh National Opera as Anatole in David Pountney’s new production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace including performances at the Royal Opera House, following what critics called a “career-defining” house debut with the company as Andrei in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. He performed one of his signature roles, Electrician in Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face for the inaugural production of Irish National Opera. Notable international main stage debuts include Israeli Opera (Salome), Oper Zürich (Sweeney Todd), Teatro Real Madrid (Street Scene), Teatro Massimo Palermo (Parsifal).

He has garnered critical acclaim in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Adés, collaborating with innovative directors such as Richard Jones, Christopher Alden, Calixto Bieito, Deborah Warner, David Pountney, Carrie Cracknell, David Alden, John Fulljames, Oliver Mears, Graham Vick, Olivia Fuchs, Antony McDonald, Annilese Miskimmon, Olivier Benezech, David Freeman, and many others.

He has performed with eminent conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Richard Armstrong, Richard Bonynge, Jane Glover, Marc Soustrot, David Parry, Ulf Schirmer, Stephen Lord, Elgar Howarth, Oleg Caetani, Mark Wigglesworth, Ed Gardner, Tomas Hanus, Rafael Payare, Paul Daniel, Vasily Petrenko, David Stern, Nicholas Braithwaite, David Hill, Richard Farnes and Rafael Payare.

On the concert stage he has appeared in the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, with Orchestre de Paris, München Rundfunkorchester, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of Melbourne, Queensland and Adelaide.

A prizewinner in the Australian Singing Competition, he studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio London, with additional scholarships to the Ravinia Festival (Chicago), Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme and the Bayreuth Festival. He made his professional debut in Los Angeles as Rodolfo in Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème (winning an “Ovation” Award for Outstanding Performance).

Northern Irish baritone Ben McAteer’s current highlights include Pangloss Candide with Marin Alsop in a new production by Lydia Steier at Theater an der Wien, and with the Hamburger Symphoniker and Martin Yates. He previously performed the role in the work’s Chinese premiere with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra and Dane Lam. He returns to Hamburg for Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri.

He also revives his acclaimed Mountararat Iolanthe for ENO in 2023. A natural performer of Gilbert & Sullivan, he recently also appeared as Grand Inquisitor The Gondoliers and King Paramount Utopia Limited for Scottish Opera and for the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival.

Ben made his Wexford Festival Opera debut in 2022 as Baskir Lalla Roukh for Wexford Festival Opera and returned to Irish National Opera as Malatesta in Don Pasquale and Officer Two & Blazes in Peter Maxwell-Davies’ The Lighthouse.

Recent concert work includes Haydn’s Creation with the Ulster Orchestra and Daniele Rustioni and Brahms’ German Requiem with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.

Versatile in character and with a remarkable vocal range, he has sung both Figaro (Scottish Opera) and Count Almaviva (Irish National Opera) Le nozze di Figaro, Falke (Welsh National Opera) and Eisenstein (Northern Ireland Opera) Die Fledermaus, Pish-Tush (Scottish Opera) and Pooh-Bah (Lyric Opera Ireland) The Mikado, as well as Frank-Fritz Die tote Stadt (RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra), Goryanchikov From the House of the Dead (WNO), Sharpless Madama Butterfly (Opera Holland Park), Father Hänsel und Gretel (INO), Papageno Magic Flute (NI Opera), and Guglielmo Così fan tutte (Scottish Opera).

He features on a disc of undiscovered songs by Irish composer Ina Boyle with Iain Burnside, released on Delphian Records in August 2021, and has recorded the role of Jesus in Arthur Sullivan’s oratorio The Light of the World and Rupert Vernon in his operetta Haddon Hall, both with the BBC Concert Orchestra. In 2023 he featured on EM Records Maltworms and Milkmaids: Warlock and the Orchestra with the BBC Concert Orchestra and David Hill, containing all of Peter Warlock’s music which involves the use of an orchestra.

Ben was an Emerging Artist at Scottish Opera (during which time he won Outstanding Performance in Opera at the My Theatre Awards in Toronto for his performance of James in the world première of The Devil Inside), and trained at the National Opera Studio in London and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Before embarking on a musical career, he studied Chemistry at the University of St Andrews.

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.

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 is Chorus Director of the RSNO Chorus and enjoys a varied career as a freelance musician. Commencing his appointment of the RSNO Chorus in September 2022, he previously spent 13 years as the Chorus Master of Belfast Philharmonic Choir who, in addition to their regular performances with the Ulster Orchestra, have given a number of world premieres. He particularly enjoys working with amateur singers and is Musical Director of Edinburgh Bach Choir (since 2017) and has been Musical Director of the Garleton Singers since 1994. Over the years he has also run several, highly-successful ‘come & sing’ events raising funds for a number of charities.

Stephen held the position of Director of Music of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh for 18 years, directing the 30-voice choir through the full range of sung services which also included large-scale, orchestrally-accompanied services during the Edinburgh Festival.

As a keyboard player, he plays harpsichord/organ continuo and orchestral piano with all the Scottish orchestras as well as the Ulster Orchestra and has given frequent organ recitals including several four-star recitals on the grand Mulholland Organ in the Ulster Hall, Belfast.

He has compiled a large portfolio of arrangements and orchestrations, particularly for young voices and has received commissions from Children’s Classic Concerts, Ulster Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Recent orchestrations include the premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Seek him that maketh the seven stars and a classical/folk crossover with award-winning band Dallahan marking the anniversary of the Battle of Loos. In addition, the BBC have commissioned a number of arrangements which have been performed at Proms in the Park and BBC Alba and his pieces feature on several recordings.

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