Edinburgh Festival Chorus take to the stage for the 150th Anniversary of Verdi’s Requiem

• The Edinburgh Festival Chorus will perform with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh in March 2024 to mark the 150^th anniversary of Verdi’s Requiem 
• This will be the final chance to catch them before their performance at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 
• The performances also mark their first appearances since the appointment of their new Choral Director, James Grossmith, in 2023

The Edinburgh Festival Chorus are set to perform Verdi’s Requiem this month in Glasgow and Edinburgh, 150 years after its premiere in Milan in 1874. These performances also mark their first public performances since the appointment of James Grossmith as Choral Director in September 2023.

The performances, which take place on the 21^st of March at Glasgow City Halls and the 24^th of March at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, will see the Chorus performing the Verdi’s highly operatic funeral mass with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the orchestra’s Chief Conductor, Ryan Wigglesworth. 

Verdi’s Requiem is a highly theatrical and epic Catholic funeral mass which was written following the death of Verdi’s Italian poet, philosopher and novelist, Alessandro Manzoni. 

The Edinburgh Festival Chorus are often credited as being the “choral backbone” of the Edinburgh International Festival’s programme. The chorus was founded in 1965 and has run continually since then. It’s comprised of 130 singers from all walks of life from all around Scotland who are selected through an auditions process and rehearse weekly. 

Since the creation of the Chorus, its singers have had the opportunity to perform alongside the likes of Leonard Bernstein and the London Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan’s Berlin Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

This is the last chance to see The Edinburgh Festival Chorus in concert before the Edinburgh International Festival in August, where the Chorus will perform Alexander Grechaninov’s Passion Week.

More information can be found here: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/edinburgh-festival-chorus 

The Edinburgh Festival Chorus will celebrate their 60^th anniversary in 2025.

For more information on the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, including how to audition, please visit: https://www.eif.co.uk/about/edinburgh-festival-chorus 

You can book tickets for the Glasgow performance here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/eb6wxj

and tickets for the Edinburgh performance here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efpgfx