Colin Davis got his big break in 1959 when Otto Klemperer fell ill and he took his place at the Royal Festival Hall to conduct a concert performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Joan Sutherland.

BBC: Obituary: Colin Davis

The Usher Hall will host the festival's opening concert, Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri, the story of a fallen angel's salvation.

BBC: king lear

The festival was first staged in 1993 as a way of filling the Royal Concert Hall's January schedule.

BBC: Celtic Connections