The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has announced today that Thomas Dausgaard will succeed Donald Runnicles as the ensemble’s Chief Conductor, beginning in September 2016. Dausgaard will remain Chief Conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Honorary Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, which he led for eight years. Runnicles becomes Conductor Emeritus. ‘The infectious joy of making music with the BBC SSO makes it a great honour’ Dausgaard said of his appointment on the official press release. ‘I am a fond admirer of the orchestra’s creativity, team-spirit and excellence.’ 

Dausgaard’s appointment ends speculation in some quarters that the conductor was on the lookout for a symphony orchestra position following his departure from the DNSO in 2011 and his steadily increasing globetrotting. The altitudinous Dane made acclaimed debuts with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras in the space of a few months in the 2013/14 season, but has been an increasingly popular visitor to Glasgow and to the London-based BBC Symphony Orchestra, at both the Barbican and the Proms. 

‘Attracting someone of Thomas’s calibre reaffirms the outstanding worldwide reputation of the BBC SSO’ said Gavin Reid, the orchestra’s General Manager, of the appointment, ‘the orchestra has excelled when working with him in the past.’ The most recent of Dausgaard’s recordings reviewed by Gramophone included performances of Schubert’s First and Second Symphonies praised by Geoffrey Norris for their ‘definition and dynamism’ (12/14). Anyone who has seen Dausgaard conduct will recognise the second of those qualities, which he brings to live performances in abundance and with a distinctive generosity of spirit. Dausgaard’s interest in anthropology has seen him spend time with a remote headhunting tribe in Borneo and volunteer as a farmer in China. 

In the 150th anniversary of the births of the two great Nordic symphonists Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius, the BBC orchestras appear to be taking on an increasingly Nordic hue. Dausgaard will become the second Dane at the helm of a BBC orchestra following the appointment of Thomas Søndergård at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2012. Come September 2016, all four BBC symphony orchestras will have Nordic conductors on their letterhead, as Finns Sakari Oramo and John Storgårds continue as Chief Conductor and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic respectively. Before taking up his position, Dausgaard will conduct Sibelius’s last three symphonies in the orchestra’s 2015-16 season. 

Dausgaard, originally a cellist, is particularly known for his recordings of music by fellow Danes Rued Langgaard and Per Nørgård (for Dacapo); of Beethoven symphonic works with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra (for Simax); and of symphonies by Schumann, Bruckner and Brahms with the same orchestra (for his self-styled ‘opening doors’ series on BIS).