Edinburgh Royal Choral Union - A leading choir in Edinburgh
Skip menu and go to content
  • Home
  • Concerts
    • Reviews
  • History
    • Jubilee
    • Centenary
    • Centenary Usher Hall
    • 125th Anniversary
    • 150th Anniversary
    • Royal Charter
    • Festivals
  • Support Us
    • Friends
  • About Us
    • People
  • Join/Contact
  • Library
  • Members
    • New Members
    • Handbook
    • Rotas
    • Privacy Notice
    • Policy Notices
    • Who's Who
    • Photo Album

Upcoming Concerts

2024 - 2025 Season

Coming next...

Summer Concert 2025

Picture
Radiant in Blue and Gold​
Saturday 24 May 2025, 7:30pm
​St Cuthbert’s Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Tickets are £22, or £8 for Students/Children, now available from TicketSource

Michael Bawtree - Conductor & Harpsichord
Fraser David Macdonald - Conductor
Edinburgh Pro Musica Orchestra
Anna Pych - Soprano
Zsuzsana Cerveni - Mezzo-soprano
Sasha Del Mar - Bass
Nikodem Rodzeń - Violin
Lily Brown - Flute

For our summer concert, ERCU present some of the sunniest works in the repertoire as well as a world premiere.

Dixit Dominus is an extraordinary tour de force composed by a youthful Handel while he was living in Italy. Chorus, orchestra and soloists are all employed to impressive effect: the opening is one of Handel’s most arresting orchestral preludes.

The Brandenburg concertos show Bach at his most resourceful and exploratory. In No 5, the harpsichord takes a leading role among the soloists—the work has been called the first keyboard concerto ever written. In Bach’s Missa Brevis, a translucent orchestral texture underpins the choir and soloists; it has a pastoral nature thanks to the inclusion of two flutes.

Advice for a Butterfly explores time and change. Written for chorus, string orchestra, two solo violins and two flutes, the music is a study in temporality, capturing the beauty of the life of a butterfly, and its bittersweet shortness.

Introducing our soloists:
Picture
Anna Pych
Anna Pych  Soprano
Anna is a Polish soprano based in the United Kingdom. Her recent stage appearances include the world premieres of Edward Jessen’s operatic sonic theatre work Syllable in the role of Kael (Trinity Laban Opera) as well as Plantation A… as A… (Grimeborn Opera Festival, Arcola Theatre; Arnolfini Arts Bristol), jukebox opera Strozzi! in the role of Paulina (Trinity Laban Opera), and Blow’s Venus and Adonis as The Shepherdess (Blackheath Halls Opera). 
In scenes, she has performed as Despina (Così fan tutte), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Vixen (Cunning Little Vixen), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus). Anna was recently awarded third place in the A Ramsay Calder Debussy Prize for Voice with her duo partner Eléna Esposito.

Anna has taken part in masterclasses with renowned musicians such as Anne Sofie von Otter (Wigmore Hall masterclass series), Malcolm Martineau, Susan Bullock, John Mark Ainsley, Karen Cargill, Ailish Tynan and others.

Anna is currently studying towards her master’s degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under Wilma MacDougall. Alongside her studies, she is developing an online catalogue of phonetic transcriptions of Polish vocal music, with a mission to make this repertoire accessible to singers worldwide.
Picture
Zsuzsana Cerveni
Zsuzsana Cerveni  Mezzo-soprano
​Romanian mezzo-soprano Zsuzsana is a graduate of the National University of Music in Bucharest. Alongside her studies, she made her debut at the National Opera House in Bucharest during the 2018-19 season in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Grieg’s Peer Gynt and, over the next three years, made further debuts in the roles of Un Pastore in Tosca, Annina in La Traviata and Zerlina in Don Giovanni, as well as appearances on its concert platform.
From September 2023, Zsuzsana has continued her studies as a master’s student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where in 2025, she was proud to be the recipient of first prize in the Norma Greig French Song Competition and to appear in MMus Opera Scenes as Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia, Carmen in Carmen and Frau Reich in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor. As production manager and alto, she was part of two performances on Good Friday of Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri at RCS and Paisley Abbey and performed extracts from Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle. Also, Zsuzsana is very honoured and grateful to have been awarded a grant from Bill Barclay Legacy for her second year of postgraduate studies.
Picture
Sasha Del Mar
Sasha Del Mar  Bass
Sasha is currently a second-year student at the University of Edinburgh studying Russian and Spanish, and freelances around Scotland during term time, while being based in London outside of term. He began singing aged two, before going on to be a chorister at Westminster Abbey, becoming Head Chorister in his final year. 
​Recent solo highlights include Christus in Bach’s St John Passion, arias for the Glasgow Bach Cantata Project under John Butt and Michael Bawtree, and Handel’s Messiah. 
He currently sings with the Edinburgh University Chamber Choir, which regularly tours around Scotland and the rest of Europe, including an upcoming tour to Portugal in June 2025. He studies privately with Andy McTaggart at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has aspirations of attending conservatoire once he has completed his undergraduate degree.
Picture
Nikodem RodzeƄ
Nikodem Rodzeń  Violin
Nikodem is a violinist, composer and improviser from Warsaw, Poland, currently based in Glasgow, where he moved to study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. A keen collaborator and an in-depth researcher, he has been developing a multifaceted artistic practice that draws on a wide spectrum of musical traditions and modes of expression. 
From historically informed performance to experimental contemporary music and improvisation, his work seeks to trace the intersections of creative research and performance, uncovering shared resonances across time and style.
​Equally at ease leading classical ensembles as he is improvising and working with electroacoustic textures, Nikodem has worked alongside John Butt, David Watkin or Philippe Forget and with the Glasgow Bach Cantata Project, and presented collaborative performances as part of Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries and with Studio Collective at the Southbank Centre in London. His composition for solo harpsichord was premiered last autumn at soundfestival in Aberdeen.

Deeply invested in the social reach of music, Nikodem is a musician with Live Music Now Scotland and a music volunteer within the NHS. Bringing original performances to new audiences, his work reflects the belief in music’s capacity to link individual inquiry with community connection — an expressive force grounded in empathy, curiosity and openness.
Picture
Lily Brown  Flute
​
Lily recently graduated from her master’s in flute performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She was the winner of the Governor’s Recital Prize for Woodwind 2024 and was awarded the David Nicholson Flute Prize for Travel and Study.
​Last year Lily performed at the Celtic Connections festival, which aired on BBC Scotland. She has taken part in two side-by-side performances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with concerts in both Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. She has also taken part in side-by-side schemes with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Opera and McOpera. Lily has enjoyed recent performances with the Telemann Ensemble, Odyssey Festival Orchestra and Cruachan Court Orchestra. She is also one half of flute and harp duo, Apollo’s Melody.

Keep in touch

Keep in touch with ERCU and find out more about our upcoming concerts and events. Sign up below to join our mailing list.
We look forward to welcoming you to one of our concerts this year. 

Season Overview

2024

Come and Sing

Brahms Requiem
​
Saturday 07 September
10 am to 5:30pm
St Cuthbert's Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Brahms Requiem

Ronald Center:
Dona Nobis Pacem
Charles Villiers Stanford:
For lo, I raise up
​Saturday 16 November, 7:30pm, St Cuthbert's Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Christmas with the Choral

Carols for All to Sing
​Saturday 14 December, 5pm
Morningside Parish Church

2025

New Year Messiah

Thursday 02 January, 12 noon, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Spring Concert

From Darkness to Light
Rutter: Requiem
Britten: Missa Brevis
Parry: Blest Pair of Sirens
Duruflé: Messe cum jubilo
Saturday 15 March
Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh

Summer Concert

Handel: Dixit Dominus
JS Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
Fraser David Macdonald: Advice for a Butterfly
JS Bach: Missa Brevis in A
Saturday 24 May
​St Cuthbert’s, Lothian Road, Edinburgh
Tickets available now from TicketSource

Past Concerts

To read reviews of previous concerts, click here.
Edinburgh Royal Choral Union
is a company limited by guarantee registered in Scotland SC267148.
Scottish Charity No SCO12050.
Instagram logo
Picture
Making Music Logo
  • Home
  • Concerts
    • Reviews
  • History
    • Jubilee
    • Centenary
    • Centenary Usher Hall
    • 125th Anniversary
    • 150th Anniversary
    • Royal Charter
    • Festivals
  • Support Us
    • Friends
  • About Us
    • People
  • Join/Contact
  • Library
  • Members
    • New Members
    • Handbook
    • Rotas
    • Privacy Notice
    • Policy Notices
    • Who's Who
    • Photo Album