SCO & François Leleux - Bizet (Live) - The Scotsman

As an oboist, Leleux is a remarkably charismatic, flamboyant performer, matching immaculate technique with a dazzlingly vivid identification with his music.

Those qualities continue in his conducting – detailed, demanding, but full of such abundant enthusiasm that you’re swept up in it from the first moment. The SCO musicians seemed to lap it up, in playing of immense freedom that glowed from within.

His closing Bizet Symphony in C was brisk, urgent, full of bite, and as playful as you could ever want it to be.