Usher Hall Archives - Page 2 of 3

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

LPO: Holst The Planets – Usher Hall

Edinburgh’s stately Usher Hall, hosts a stirring evening with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner. The programme offers up some delicious delights, a Rachmaninoff favourite and Holst’s undisputed masterpiece.The concert opens though with Judith Weir’s Forest, a brief, fairytale‑tinged overture. But it’s the second work - Rachmaninoff’s 24‑variation Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - featuring pianist Beatrice Rana, that deeply moves me. From her first notes, Rana brings thoughtful nuance to each variation—gracefully shifting between melancholy and exuberance, tenderness and tempest. Key moments, like the haunting counterpoint of Variation XVIII and the sweeping climax at XIX, resonate with crystalline control and deep emotional weight. Her playing is both virtuosic and vu...

NYO2: Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony – Usher Hall

4Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

NYO2: Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony – Usher Hall

Edinburgh’s Usher Hall tonight hosts the European debut of NYO2—Carnegie Hall’s amazing youth orchestra for 14–17-year-olds. Led by the energetic conductor Rafael Payare, they perform a bold and exciting programme, including Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. The evening begins though with an unexpected treat, Jimmy López’s Perú Negro (2012), a dazzling tribute to Afro-Peruvian musical traditions. It’s rhythmically electric and full of colour, the highlight of the night for me. The percussion drives it with so much energy, and the whole orchestra plays with real joy and confidence. It’s a perfect way to start. Visually, the stage looks fantastic. The orchestra wears red and black, with cellist Alisa ...

Opening Concert: The Veil of the Temple – Usher Hall

3Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Opening Concert: The Veil of the Temple – Usher Hall

With its hushed reverence and cosmic scale, John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple opens this year’s Edinburgh International Festival not with a bang, but with an invocation. Across eight immersive hours in the Usher Hall, Tavener’s vast and luminous work offers something rare: not simply music, but a spiritual experience—at once intimate and immense, ancient and disarmingly modern.First performed in 2003 as an all-night vigil in London’s Temple Church, The Veil has never been heard in its entirety in Scotland—until now. It is a demanding work, not only for the 250-strong ensemble of singers and instrumentalists, but for the audience as well. Beginning at 2:30 p.m. and ending at 10:15pm, this performance asked for attention, stillness, and patience. It gave, in return, something deeply movi...

Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners – Usher Hall

18Mar

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners – Usher Hall

Perfectly timed for St Patrick’s Day, ‘Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners’ stopped off at the Usher Hall on their 2025 UK Tour. As the name suggests, this concert-style show tells the story of Ireland’s famous folk group, the Dubliners, with songs such as ‘The Irish Rover’, ‘Tell Me Ma’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’. The show was created with O’Donoghue’s pub where the original group used to perform. The performance is made up of a talented group of musicians who bring the Dubliners’ greatest hits to life while also serving as narrators, teaching the lively audience how the group started out 50 years ago. The stage makes use of three different locations - a traditional Irish pub, a recording studio set and a section at the front left clear for the performers to come closer to the a...

Scottish Opera: The Strauss Collection – Usher Hall

9Mar

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Scottish Opera: The Strauss Collection – Usher Hall

Delivering once again a powerful and meticulous performance, Scottish Opera presented a collection of Richard Strauss’ finest works at the Usher Hall. Led by musical director Stuart Stratford, we were taken on a journey filled with melodrama and sly wit that still translates to the modern-day audience. To begin the concert we were presented with the Prologue of Ariadne auf Naxos - a surprisingly self-referential piece where we see an opera take place within the opera - very meta (mise en abyme if you’re fancy). Helena Dix takes the role of Prima Donna by storm with sass and self-assurance, reminding us that opera is not all doom and gloom. Hanna Hipp and Rhian Lois made for a dynamic duo, both with a stunning clarity to their voices. The contrasting roles H...

Pretty Vacant: The Story of Punk and New Wave – Usher Hall

29Jan

By Nazaret RaneaNo Comments

Scotland

Pretty Vacant: The Story of Punk and New Wave – Usher Hall

Punk was never about perfection, and Pretty Vacant – The Story of Punk and New Wave definitely stuck to that ethos. Hitting the stage at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on the 28th of January, the show set out to celebrate one of the most rebellious, game-changing movements in music history. And while the music absolutely delivered, the rest of the production felt a little basic—fun, but not quite as explosive as it could have been. The best thing about the night was, hands down, the setlist. From The Sex Pistols and The Clash to Blondie and The Ramones, the show was packed with classics. Hearing God Save the Queen and London Calling live—well, as live as a tribute show gets—still gave me chills. And when they launched into Blondie’s Heart of Glass, it was a perfect shift into the smoother, more...

Scottish Opera’s The Puccini Collection – Usher Hall

25Nov

By Nazaret RaneaNo Comments

Scotland

Scottish Opera’s The Puccini Collection – Usher Hall

As a lifelong Puccini fan, there’s nothing quite like hearing his music live, and Scottish Opera’s The Puccini Collection at the Usher Hall did not disappoint. This was a moving and celebratory tribute to mark the centenary of Puccini’s death, with Stuart Stratford conducting the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and a stellar line-up of soloists. The programme was brilliantly chosen. Alongside famous excerpts from Tosca, La Bohème, and Turandot, we were treated to earlier works like Le Villi and Edgar—pieces that are seldom performed but give insight into Puccini’s evolution as a composer. The decision to include extended scenes, not just standalone arias, made the performance feel more immersive, as though we were being drawn into the emotional worlds of the operas themselves. Stuart Str...

27Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Verdi’s Requiem – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

The Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by the youthful and energetic Santa-Matias Rouvali, accompanied by the massed ranks of the brilliant Edinburgh Festival Chorus, lit up the Usher Hall tonight with a powerful rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem. The argument continues whether this is more of an an opera than an ecclesiastical work, but one thing all can agree on is that it is packed full of drama. The trumpet shall sound, through the places of the dead, and across the land The multiple drum-heralded Dies Irae (one of Verdi’s most recognisable ‘Bangers’) never fails to send a shiver down my spine, and it was a joy to hear it rebounding around the great space that is the Usher Hall, surely the finest classical music venue in Edinburgh. You will rarely see the string section...

6Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

St. Matthew’s Passion – Usher Hall

The second Passion of the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival, following on immediately from the opening night Concert, Osvaldo Gilijov’s extraordinaryLa Pasio Segun San Marcos,a reinterpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion from 2000. However, tonight too is a reworking of Bach’s original masterpiece. The young Felix Mendelssohn transformed Johann Sebastian Bach’s majestic St Matthew Passion for modern orchestra. We hear his (rarely performed) groundbreaking arrangement from Leipzig 1841. Arguably this changed the course of music history, and without it the great Bach revival of the 19th Century might never have happened. There would surely have been an argument to host a third Passion, the original, using baroque instruments, which would sound very different again. A...

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

5Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

The opening of the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival by Nicola Benedetti marks the beginning of an exhilarating 24 day, 160 event celebration of opera, dance, music and theatre in the Scottish Capital. Following last years’ tentative, ‘Where do we go from here?’, we start this year with the more upbeat, ‘Rituals that unite us. And the opening concert tonight could hardly be a better example of the statement. Spaniard, Osvaldo Gilijov’s extraordinary reinterpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion was commissioned in 2000 to mark the composer’s 250th anniversary. Now, almost a quarter of a Century old and having been performed around the globe, it (finally!) has its first Scottish outing. But this is no Solemn biblical narrative, no, this is a shock of rhythm and colour, in mult...