“I think the most simple answer is I don’t,” Luis Schmidt says, laughing down the line from Switzerland when I ask how he manages his diary. “It is difficult at times. I mean, this year, I think for the first time, I’m going on holidays—first time in four years or something. So, I’ve blocked the entirety of July just to relax and learn scores and do those bits and pieces that you usually don’t have time for when you spend most of the time on a train or an airplane.”
Ground transport wins out every time. “I don’t mind trains actually. I find trains quite comfortable. I hate flying because it’s so much wasted time with queues and everything.”
Schmidt has just turned 22. Between his doctoral research at the University of Zurich, rehearsals in Munich, and a growing conducting diary, he runs Edinburgh’s newest classical outfit, Capella Edina.
When I first interviewed Schmidt for the Edinburgh Inquirer shortly after the orchestra’s 2024 launch, the project sounded like an audacious piece of student swagger. The premise was straightforward: a 20-year-old undergraduate arriving from Bavaria to fill a gap left open since 1937. Edinburgh has never lacked visiting festival ensembles, resident chamber groups, or amateur societies, but a permanent civic philharmonic had eluded the capital for nearly nine decades.
Two years later, the venture has refused to pack up its instrument cases. Instead, it has gathered civic weight. Edinburgh’s Lord Provost recognised Capella Edina as the City of Edinburgh’s Philharmonic Orchestra during the capital’s 900th anniversary events. The Duke of Hamilton agreed to serve as Patron. Operatic baritone Sir Thomas Allen CBE joined as Honorary President. German public broadcaster ZDF even dispatched a crew to film a profile of Schmidt at work.
Yet this is not just another orchestra in the mould of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra or the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Capella Edina is a project-based orchestra, convening a hand-picked pool of crack freelance players from across Scotland’s Central Belt for specific concerts and recording dates.
” I mean, this year, I think for the first time, I’m going on holidays…”
Luis Schmidt
Schmidt did not build the framework in isolation, either. He established the outfit alongside two seasoned operators: Robert Ames, co-principal conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra, and Christopher Bruerton, first baritone of The King’s Singers. That professional backing provided the young conductor with crucial institutional scaffolding.
Managing Capella Edina: Arts Governance and the £700 Sheet Music Dilemma
When we caught up earlier this summer, Schmidt was midway through his second season. The spring programmes are now behind him: a charity concert alongside the Band of His Majesty’s Royal Marines Scotland at Dundee’s Caird Hall in May, followed by an English pastoral programme at the Assembly Rooms in June.
Conducting an orchestra may look glamorous from the stalls. Running an arts charity, Schmidt quickly discovered, involves a great deal less time waving a baton and far more time wrestling with governance.
“It’s like, quite a lot, I think,” Schmidt says. “And it’s still a daily learning. I would say a lot of the communication things that happen with any organization, but also just running a charity as such, which is very different to conducting. So, I wasn’t prepared for that, and kind of writing chairman’s reports and all those admin duties…”
Then there is the bizarre financial reality of hired orchestral scores, an operational tax that would drive any conventional business owner to distraction.
“One of the other bits that people really don’t see in the audience is what a frustrating job sorting sheet music can be,” Schmidt explains. “Because, I mean, the times that you can buy sheet music seem to be over, sadly. So, you need to hire everything from the big publishers. And it’s a nightmare… If a car manufacturer would hire out a car in the state of the sheet music you receive as an orchestra, and pay about £700 for 10 minutes of music, have that for a month, to spend about 20 hours just to erase drawings in the music, is ridiculous.”
That administrative slog has forced the naturally meticulous conductor to curb his instincts for total control.
“I think there needs to be some form of plan, but I think with it being such a new organization, there can’t be a precise plan either,” he admits. “I think it’s a lot at the moment, as strange as it sounds, going with the flow, which for anyone that knows me will giggle at that because I’m not really a going-with-the-flow type of person. I like to stick to plans, but I think the orchestra has taught me a lot in that regard. But I think it’s taking things at a time and not doing too much too soon.”
Civic Backing and Royal Patronage: The Duke of Hamilton and Edinburgh 900
The speed with which Schmidt gathered senior establishment figures around Capella Edina speaks to an artist with a vital blend of enthusiasm and charisma. Accordingly, his route into Edinburgh’s civic hierarchy began with municipal diplomacy.
Schmidt met Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Robert Aldridge, via the German Consul General during celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Edinburgh-Munich city twinning. An invitation to coffee at the City Chambers followed, leading to a formal season launch at The Balmoral.
“The launch of a new orchestra is a significant moment for any city, and to be there at the beginning of Capella Edina’s official launch felt special,” Lord Provost Robert Aldridge told The QR. “We enjoyed a wonderful evening of music. Edinburgh has such a rich cultural identity, with wonderful orchestral provision throughout the year so welcome to the fold! What struck me most was the enthusiasm and ambition behind the project.”
Aldridge added that his early impression of Schmidt was of someone with “enormous enthusiasm, energy and belief in what he is trying to achieve.”
The partnership bore fruit when Capella Edina was invited to stage the civic concert for Edinburgh’s 900th anniversary at the Usher Hall. Watching from the stalls was Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 16th Duke of Hamilton.
“He talked to me at the interval reception and said, ‘Well, let’s meet for lunch at some stage,’” Schmidt recalls.
Schmidt claims the Duke took an interest partly due to his own creative past, having studied sound recording at Edinburgh Napier University. I have been unable to verify this detail independently, though if true, the mental image of Scotland’s premier peer balancing audio levels behind a mixing desk would be quite a scoop.
“He’s still very young for a duke, and has three sons,” Schmidt says. “So he took also, I think, an interest in this young element that is involved with the orchestra, kind of younger performers, me as the young conductor and founder, and had a musical interest himself. And we continued the conversation, then he said, ‘Well, just let me know. I’m happy to help you in any way I can.’ And that was just such an amazing sign and showcase of his support. And then I said, ‘Well, would you be interested in becoming the Patron of the orchestra?’ And he said, ‘Oh yes, I would quite love that.’”
The Duke of Hamilton was all too happy to confirm his backing to The QR: “A friend invited me to see Luis in concert in the summer of 2024 and I was very impressed by what I heard. I am delighted to be Patron of Capella Edina and I hope I can help support the Orchestra as time goes on. Luis has put together an exciting program this year, playing at some of Scotland’s finest venues such as the Usher Hall, Caird Hall and the Assembly Rooms… He’s got a strong and determined vision of the future of orchestral music in Scotland.”
A meeting in Durham with Sir Thomas Allen secured another distinguished name for the letterhead. Schmidt is, however, realistic about what civic endorsements actually achieve.
“They’re on one hand, nice to have, and a nice reward for myself as well, to see that someone is actually taking an interest, and it’s not small names as such,” he notes. “An opera legend, a duke, and the head of a city, kind of liking what we’ve started there. And I think that’s, on one hand, amazing, but of course there is a practical aspect with kind of performing maybe certain engagements. I think otherwise we wouldn’t have performed this Edinburgh 900 concert, for example. It might help for some funders. People always like when it’s something official.”
Artistic Ambition, European Touring, and the Scottish Arts Funding Freeze
Coats of arms look impressive on concert programmes, but they do not ensure an ensemble plays in tune. Schmidt’s podium credentials come from serious stock: at 17, he became a private student of conductor Bruno Weil, placing him in an educational line tracing back through Hans Swarowsky to Arnold Schoenberg.
His programming shows a balance between Austro-German late Romanticism and an intense interest in British 20th-century scores.
“I really want us to be known for British music,” Schmidt says. “Because that’s one of my affinities, especially the Enigma Variations and Elgar Cello Concerto, and actually most of Elgar’s music is very special for me, and at the same time, Vaughan Williams. And I think the next milestone maybe after the first tour is Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony to pull that off. But that needs a bit of pulling to get off the ground.”
His broader ambitions look past traditional UK models toward mainland Europe. He points to Iván Fischer’s Budapest Festival Orchestra as an operational template: an outfit based around distinct home seasons and focused international touring, rather than fifty-two weeks of continuous local programming. A tour taking in Munich, Berlin, and Zurich is pencilled in for 2028.
“I was very impressed by what I heard. I am delighted to be Patron of Capella Edina and I hope I can help support the Orchestra as time goes on.”
The Duke of Hamilton
On home ground, the orchestra is doing actual groundwork to engage new ears. An ongoing educational partnership with Portobello High School brings orchestral workshops directly into pupils’ regular school days.
On Tuesday 15 September, Capella Edina returns to the Usher Hall with ‘Scotland’. The bill gathers Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances, James MacMillan’s Larghetto, and music from Max Richter’s score for Mary Queen of Scots, alongside Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, featuring violinist Andrea Cicalese alongside pipes and drums. As with their anniversary appearance, admission is free, with donations collected for the One City Trust.
Later in the year, on 19 November, the orchestra steps into different territory at the Usher Hall, joining indie singer-songwriter Fink for a crossover concert featuring new orchestrations arranged by Schmidt and Chester Tribley.
Gathering peers, civic figureheads, and soloists to launch an orchestra is one thing. Keeping a freelance ensemble viable as Scottish arts funding shrinks and local authority budgets freeze is another. Standstill funding settlements in Scotland have forced established companies into retrenchment, while municipal budget reductions in Berlin have unsettled Germany’s heavily subsidised culture sector.
Schmidt is under no illusions about the financial climate facing independent classical companies.
“Running an orchestra in this day and age, and it’s not just having just founded one, but also many other orchestras are just in such a difficult position, and whether that’s financially, whether that’s audience-wise,” Schmidt says. “Everything really needs to come together, and if it doesn’t, you have this big problem. While we have funding cuts this year, there will be even worse funding cuts in three years’ time. Even in countries like Germany, who are so well-funded, the orchestral landscape over there, in Berlin as well, people will have heard it in the last two weeks with all the funding cuts for the Berlin orchestras.”
For Schmidt, survival will not come from relying on civic goodwill or official titles, but from building a lean, adaptable model capable of weathering the storms ahead for all of us in the arts sector.
“We need to find a way of making what we enjoy doing sustainable,” he says. “And I think that’s the job of every organisation and the job of every person who runs such an organisation, just to shore it up for the future.”
Featured Image: Rehearsal Photo_04_(c) Euan Robertson
By
By
By
