Live La Mer Thu 7 – Sat 9 March

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård is the Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, following six seasons as Principal Guest Conductor. The 2023:24 season also sees Thomas start his tenure as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra. Between 2012 and 2018, he served as Principal Conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW), after stepping down as Principal Conductor and Musical Advisor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

He has appeared with many notable orchestras in leading European centres, such as Berlin (including Berliner Philharmoniker, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin), Munich (Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk), Leipzig (Gewandhausorchester), Paris (Orchestre National de France), London (London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, London Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestra), Amsterdam and Rotterdam (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic) and is a familiar figure in Scandinavia, with such orchestras as Oslo Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic. North American appearances to date have included the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, St Louis, Toronto, Atlanta, Montreal, Vancouver, Houston and Seattle. He has made highly successful tours to China, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The 2023:24 season marks the beginning of Thomas’ tenure as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra. With the RSNO this season, in addition to their subscription series, Thomas will lead the orchestra’s residency at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg, joined by Lise de la Salle, as well as an extensive European tour with Ray Chen. This season sees Thomas make his return to the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as his debut with the New York Philharmonic, where he will perform the US premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Keyframes for a Hippogriff. Thomas also makes regular guest appearances throughout Scandinavia this season, debuting with Iceland Symphony and the Bergen International Festival, where he leads a full staging of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt to Grieg’s complete incidental music. Return visits include Bergen Philharmonic, a joint collaboration with Aalborg and Aarhus Symfoniorkesters, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, celebrating his receipt of the Carl Nielsen and Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen’s Foundation award for his outstanding contribution to Danish musical life.

As part of the 2015 anniversary celebrations of both Sibelius and Nielsen, he conducted a wide variety of their works with many leading orchestras. A passionate supporter of the music of Carl Nielsen, his performances with the Swedish Radio Symphony of his Symphony No. 5 was praised as “equal of the great pioneers of Nielsen interpretation… It’s hard to imagine a finer performance of this remarkable symphony.” (Dagens Nyheter); and in 2019 participated in a special concert to celebrate Nielsen’s works with the Royal Danish Academy of Music Copenhagen.

Following his acclaimed debut for Royal Danish Opera (Kafka’s Trial), he has since returned regularly to conduct a broad repertoire, including Die Walküre, which won the 2022 Reumert Award for Best Opera Production, Elektra, Le nozze di Figaro, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La bohème, Cunning Little Vixen, Il viaggio a Reims; and has also made short concert tours with the Royal Danish Orchestra. He has also enjoyed successful collaborations with Norwegian Opera and Royal Swedish Opera. His Stockholm productions of Tosca and Turandot (both with Nina Stemme) led to his Bayerische Staatsoper debut, conducting main season and Opera Festival performances of Turandot with her and he most recently returned to for the Opera’s Akademiekonzert series. He made his Deutsche Oper Berlin debut with the World premiere of Scartazzini’s Edward II and has since returned for Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet.

His discography covers a broad range of contemporary and mainstream repertoire, including Poul Ruders (Arhus Symphony, Norwegian Radio, Royal Danish Opera (Kafka’s Trial) for Da Capo and Bridge Records); Sibelius symphonies and tone poems with BBC NOW and Prokofiev and Richard Strauss with RSNO for Linn Records; Lutoslawski and Dutilleux concertos with ‘cellist Johannes Moser and Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Pentatone); and Vilde Frang’s celebrated debut recording (WDR Koln for EMI).

In January 2022, Thomas was decorated with a prestigious Royal Order of Chivalry – the Order of Dannebrog (Ridder af Dannebrogordenen) by Her Majesty Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark.

Catriona Morison, Scottish mezzo-soprano based in Berlin, became known to a wider audience in 2017 when she won the Main Prize as well as the shared Song Prize of the internationally renowned BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. At that time, she was an ensemble member of the Wuppertal Opera for two seasons (2016-2018), where she added a variety of interesting roles to her repertoire, including Nicklausse (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Charlotte (Werther), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Little Arab (Juliette) Princess Clarice (The Love for Three Oranges) and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro). Guest engagements in opera have taken her to the Edinburgh International Festival, Cologne Opera, Bergen National Opera, Hamburg State Opera and Weimar National Theatre, among others. In 2015 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival under Franz Welser-Möst as a member of the Young Singers Project and in the same year at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.

In the 2022/23 season, the artist will expand her repertoire with two important roles: in Braunschweig she can be heard as Fricka in Rheingold, and she returns to Opera Wuppertal as Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.

Concert repertoire holds a special place for Catriona Morison. In summer 2019 she made her BBC Proms debut, performing Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Elim Chan. She also sang the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s This Frame is Part of the Painting also at the BBC Proms, a work commissioned for her. The artist continues to tour internationally in 2022/23: With Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi in Copenhagen, with Mahler’s Klagendem Lied with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto under Stefan Blunier, with the world premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic under Semjon Bychkov in Prague as well as with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, with Mozart’s Requiem under Manfred Honeck with both the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She can also be heard in Cologne with the Gürzenich Orchestra under Julien Chauvin in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.

Song is of particular importance to Catriona Morison, as documented by her latest CD with songs by E. Grieg, J. Brahms, Josephine Lang and R. Schumann, alongside Malcolm Martineau. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Leeds Lieder Festival, the Oxford Lieder Festival and the Schubertíada Vilabertran as well as at the Heidelberger Frühling, in Madrid and Barcelona. Her debut recital at Opera Frankfurt in spring 2022 was praised by the press:

“Almost seamless connections of the registers, a warm, earthy sound colouration in the sung chest tone, declamatory features in the lower range and excellent text comprehensibility were the technical trump cards that Morison knew how to play. In doing so, she sounded out the word-sound relationship of the compositions profoundly, penetrating perceptibly into layers of interpretation that can only be presented through a serious elaboration of text and music alike.”