2024 - 2025 SeasonComing next...Summer Concert 2025
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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We look forward to welcoming you to one of our concerts this year.
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Season Overview
2024Come and SingBrahms Requiem
Saturday 07 September 10 am to 5:30pm St Cuthbert's Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh Brahms RequiemRonald 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 ChoralCarols for All to Sing
Saturday 14 December, 5pm Morningside Parish Church 2025New Year MessiahThursday 02 January, 12 noon, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Spring ConcertFrom Darkness to Light
Rutter: Requiem Britten: Missa Brevis Parry: Blest Pair of Sirens Duruflé: Messe cum jubilo Saturday 15 March Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh Summer ConcertHandel: 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
Edinburgh Royal Choral Union |
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