The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) will make its first appearance at the Festival and will perform three programmes during its residency:

RSNO Assistant Conductor David Danzmayr will conduct the Orchestra in the Scottish première of the Percussion Concerto by American composer Jennifer Higdon, with Scottish percussionist Colin Currie as soloist. This is a colourful and exuberant work which Colin has made his own. The programme will also include Dvorak's Symphony No 9, From the New World.

Martyn Brabbins will join the RSNO for a programme featuring Sally Beamish's Accordion Concerto, The Singing, with celebrated accordionist James Crabb. James is a wonderfully versatile artist who will be involved in several artistic collaborations throughout the Festival.

RSNO Music Director Stéphane Denève will conduct the final concert of the residency - a programme of French repertoire for which the RSNO/Denève partnership has become acclaimed. The programme will include Fauré's Peleas et Melisande and will feature French pianist Eric Le Sage in contrasting piano concertos by Ravel and contemporary French composer Guillaume Conesson.

Colin Currie, James Crabb and Eric Le Sage will all appear as recitalists as well as concerto soloists.

The RSNO will also be participating in the seventh Orkney Conducting Course (OCC). Thanks to Scottish Arts Council support, both the Conducting Course and St Magnus Composers' Course will run in 2009.

Also making their first appearance at the Festival will be the Endellion Quartet, one of the world's finest string quartets, celebrating their 30 th anniversary in 2009. To mark the Haydn anniversary, the Quartet will perform Haydn's Seven Last Words from the Cross, the movements interspersed with specially written poems by Andrew Motion . A second concert will include the Scottish premiere of a new work by Roxanna Panufniuk for quartet and narrator, featuring ten witty and perceptive poems - portraits of archetypal audience members and performers - by poet Wendy Cope.

Our resident ensemble will be Psappha, the leading Manchester-based new music and music-theatre ensemble who will bring a new production of Maxwell Davies's chamber opera The Lighthouse.

Community projects will include a major community drama production and a collaboration between the Festival Chorus and the RSNO under Martyn Brabbins.