Ticciati soars in Scotland

Britain's most exciting wunderkind conductor since Simon Rattle first emerged - and, no, I haven't forgotten Daniel Harding - has big plans for his first full season with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Robin Ticciati is one of the new-generation firebrands determined to change the face of concert planning, hoping to achieve wonders similar to what Vladimir Jurowski has already stage-managed with the LPO.

So the SCO's 2010-11 season has some fireworks. Maybe the concert performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni isn't so much of a surprise, given the SCO's track record with Sir Charles Mackerras, but curiosities follow. Ticciati has programmed three of the smaller-scale Stravinsky ballets in the context of Haydn symphonies and his own selection from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (a post-Christmas treat). Fauré's Requiem will draw the crowds in to hear a Schreker rarity and Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. As for new works, the SCO season isn't short of those either. With all this, and the similar feats of enterprise being achieved by Stéphane Denève over at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Edinburgh and Glasgow are in the best musical hands.