Joana Carneiro will make her Edinburgh International Festival debut conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Usher Hall on Saturday, 17 August. The exhilarating programme features two works by Sir James MacMillan: A Scotch Bestiary and Woman of the Apocalypse.
This is the opening concert of The Festival’s five-part retrospective of MacMillan’s work in celebration of his 60th birthday. Carneiro and the Orchestra will be joined by organist Stephen Farr as soloist.
Acclaimed Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro is Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica Portuguesa and Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisbon. From 2009 to 2018 she was Music Director of Berkeley Symphony. Working internationally at the highest level, recent and future conducting highlights include engagements with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (whom she conducted at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in December 2017), Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Bergen Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic orchestras. In 18/19 she conducted Bernstein’s “It’s a Wonderful Town” with the Royal Danish Opera and a new production of “Carmen” at the Royal Stockholm Opera. She will conduct a new production of “Nixon in China” by John Adams at the Scottish Opera in early 2019.
She continues to be sought after for contemporary programmes and in recent years she made her debut at the English National Opera conducting the world stage premiere of John Adams’ “The Gospel According to the Other Mary”. In 2016 she conducted a production of “La Passion de Simone” at the Ojai Festival which was highly acclaimed, and a production of Van der Aa’s “Book of Disquiet” with the London Sinfonietta. In 2010, Carneiro led performances of Peter Sellars’s stagings of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms at the Sydney Festival, which won Australia’s Helpmann Award for Best Symphony Orchestra Concert that year. Joana has also worked regularly with singer/song-writer Rufus Wainwright.
For more information and tickets, please visit www.eif.co.uk.
