THE Scottish Chamber Orchestra yesterday announced the appointment of

Ivor Bolton as its new chief conductor. He takes up his post in August

1994.

Ivor Bolton, 35, who was educated at Clare College, Oxford, and the

Royal College of Music, has worked regularly with the SCO in recent

years. Most recently he appeared with them at Mayfest and the Edinburgh

Festival where he presided over the first performances of James

MacMillan's music theatre work Visitatio Sepulchri. He has just recorded

the work with the SCO as part of the MacMillan series on BMG Classics.

In the course of his appointment he will give a minimum of 12

performances a year with the orchestra, in addition to touring and

recording. His repertoire will embrace the baroque (he is also a

harpsichordist) and the modern. This season he will make two guest

appearances with the SCO conducting music by Bach and Corelli, Tippett

and Stravinsky. He will also conduct the premiere of a new work by Peter

Nelson.

A long association with Glyndebourne culminated in his appointment

last year as director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera. In addition, he

founded in 1984 the St James's Baroque Players with whom he made his

London Proms debut this year.

Bolton succeeds Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the SCO's former principal

conductor. The change of terminology to chief conductor is significant.

The SCO management feels that, rather than being led artistically by a

single figurehead, it is more appropriate to the orchestra's remit to

have a group or roster of regular conductors, embracing among them a

broad range of specialisms.

Thus Ivor Bolton joins a team that includes Sir Charles Mackerras, the

SCO's chief guest conductor (whose Mozart opera performances with the

SCO are highly acclaimed), Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the orchestra's

associate composer/conductor, principally concerned with the completion

of the Strathclyde Concerto project, and James MacMillan, the SCO's

affiliate composer, who has conducted the orchestra in performances of

his own music.