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There's an almost life-sized cardboard cutout in the foyer of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall of the RSNO's music director Stéphane Denève.

With his big bubbly personality, and ever bigger, bubblier hair, he has been an important figurehead for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra since his appointment over five years ago.

His enthusiasm for music is genuinely infectious, whether on the podium at concerts, or offstage with members of the public.

And there's little he won't do to promote music in his adopted homeland - from interactive events, social occasions and even that Scottish rite of passage, a cameo in a comic strip of the Broons.

So filling his shoes on his departure after the 2011/2012 season was always going to be a challenge.

But it sounds like the RSNO may have found a worthy successor. Peter Oundjian is currently the Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra - a post he's held since 2004 and will continue to hold, since he'll remain in post there, in parallel with his new job with the RSNO, which he'll take up next season..

Born in Toronto, he was raised in London, studied in New York and first came to prominence as a musician, playing first violin in the Tokyo String Quartet, who as well as playing a string of high profile dates, were equally celebrated on the children's show Sesame Street.

Dystonia forced him out of playing music but opened up a successful new career as a conductor, taking him to a string of orchestras in North America and Europe.

Since he arrived in Toronto in 2004, he's been credited with turning the orchestra around, increasing subscriptions as well as younger audiences and playing a prominent and very visible role in the Toronto cultural scene.

Not unlike Maestro Denève, indeed.

And for those who believe Monsieur Denève still has the upper hand on all things quirky, here's one more little detail.

His first cousin is Eric Idle - leading to his collaboration on Not The Messiah (he's a Very naughty boy) - a comedic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Could there be more in the pipeline in his new post? We'll just have to see.

Some audiences will already be familiar with Mr Oundjian, who has previously conducted the RSNO on several occasions.

He re-joins the orchestra in April 2011 for three concerts and a programme comprising Christopher Rouse's Rapture, Grieg's Piano Concerto with Stephen Hough, and Brahms' Symphony No3.

He's also be back in the 2011-12 season - due to be announced in a few weeks time - conducting performances of Martinů's Fantasies Symphoniques and Mozart's Requiem

The last time I met James Waters, it was on board Concorde.

To be fair, it was stationary and in the confines of the National Museum of Flight but still an unusual setting for a musical premiere as part of the Lammermuir Festival, which he co-directs.

This week he was presiding over another unusual premiere. The venue - Perth Concert Hall - is ordinary enough but the piece, a concerto by Vivaldi, hasn't been heard for the best part of 250 years, if at all.

Among those listening in to rehearsals of Il Gran Mogol, is musicologist Andrew Woolley, from the University of Southampton, who stumbled across the score while researching another matter in the National Archives of Scotland.

Il Gran Mogol - one of a quartet of short, national concertos, all believed to be missing - was filed away among the papers of the Marquesses of Bute.

Softly spoken Mr Woolley is modest about his find.

Grand tour

"I'm a huge fan of Vivaldi and I knew it was something very special - but it was really a case of asking the right question - was it known?" he asked.

The answer was that the piece wasn't known, at least in recent years.

It's believed to have been brought to Scotland by the son of the third Marquis of Lothian, who, as noblemen did in those days, went on a grand tour of Europe and brought home the concerto as a souvenir.

As a keen flautist, there's every chance he played it, but no mention of any public performance before Lord Robert Kerr died on the battlefield at Culloden and the concerto disappeared into piles of family papers.

There was of course huge excitement about the discovery. Adrian Chandler, who leads the early music ensemble La Serenissima, says it's comparable with the discovery of Vivaldi's sacred work Dixit Dominus in a German archive in 2005. But how would it sound?

New album

Concert goers in Perth got the chance to find out when La Serenissima performed its 21st century premiere last night.

It's short - just seven or eight minutes long - and quite recognisably Vivaldi.

Given its theme - there are further geographical tributes to France, Spain and England - it could have been something of a novelty piece but it's not. It's unsurprising but lyrical - and from a historical point of view, fascinating to hear.

La Serenissima plan to record it after their short tour, and release it on their next album so if you didn't make it to Perth, there's still a chance to hear it.

Belated congratulations to Dundee based producer Bob Last, French director Sylvain Chomet and the huge team of animators behind the charmingly nostalgic film The Illusionist, which has been nominated for an Oscar.

It's up against the might of Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon, the former beating the film to a Golden Globe. But fingers crossed for a little bit of Scottish nostalgia in Hollywood on February 27th.

Founder's passing

And sad news from the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, whose founder John Mason died earlier this week.

An Ayrshire lawyer, with Orcadian roots, and a passion for traditional Scottish music, he not only created a world renowned orchestra but helped raise the profile of Scottish fiddle music.

Easy to see its popularity in the thick of Celtic Connections, but more of a challenge 30 years ago, when he and like minded musicians across the country first started out.

Condolences to his family, and his extended family of the fiddle orchestra.

I'm sure there will be a tribute concert at some stage - and no shortage of material, given the hundreds of tunes he composed or arranged over the years.

Scots musician Roddy Hart was the driving force behind the concert and he and his band - the Lonesome Fire - provided the backing band for this epic three-hour concert featuring everyone from Roseanne Cash to Laura Cantrell, Tim O'Brien, James Grant, Rab Noakes, Thea Gilmore, Nell Bryden and many many more.

Hart admits when he first touted the idea to Celtic Connections director Donald Shaw last summer, he envisaged a much smaller event - "maybe King Tuts or Nice and Sleazy" .

Instead he got the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall - and a sell-out gig, with scores of fans prepared to stand in the circle just for a taste of the concert.

If the sound suffered because of the rapid coming and going of performers, it was overlooked by the enthusiastic audience, keen to hear old favourites given a new twist or more obscure numbers given another outing.

Stripped-down version

Eddi Reader is a surprise guest - not least on the eve of Burns Night with another gig in Ayrshire - guesting first on Tim O'Brien's blue grass version of Lay Down Your Weary Tune from the days of The Byrds.

Then a solo stripped-down version of Buckets of Rain from Blood on the Tracks.

English folk singer Thea Gilmore introduces a darker strand with the first overtly Scottish Connection - her version of Poor Immigrants (believed to be based on the Scottish folk song Tramps and Hawkers) not to mention a blistering version of Masters of War - its bleak lyrics still as relevant today as they were in 1963.

Then it's Jemma Hayes - one of the youngest contributors - with a lively version of The Times They Are a Changin.

Obscure numbers

Hart admits that getting artists to choose the more popular numbers was harder than it looked - most wanted to sing more obscure numbers or songs found on B sides.

Chris Drever restores A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall to a folk setting; Nell Bryden belts out a big band version of Just Like A Woman, complete with breezy Hammond organ, and Thea Gilmore and James Grant lead a blistering guitar heavy version of All Along the Watchtower.

It's hard to keep up with the pace now as Laura Cantrell launches into a country tinged version of I Threw it all away and Tommy Reilly tackles a song written before he was born - It Aint me Babe.

Rab Noakes takes to the stage alone for a bewitching rendition of The Mississippi and before we know it, it's 10pm and we haven't even seen the headline star - Roseanne Cash.

Series of encores

She doesn't disappoint - avoiding her father's classic 1969 duet with Dylan on Girl From the North Country, in favour of a return to the original ballad.

With a cold, she jokes she might sound a bit like either gentlemen.

Then it's a series of encores for all the musicians as they run through the hits - My Back Pages, Forever Young, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, I Shall Be Released and finally Like A Rolling Stone.

Everyone not already on their feet is now, and singing along.

The birthday boy may not have showed up himself but he missed one hell of a party!

I'm on more solid ground with the derivation of the word Makar - which dates back to the 15th and 16th century and refers to poets like Dunbar and Henryson (who in turn used it to describe Chaucer and Shakespeare).

It's a clever phrase, suggesting craft and skill as well as the more ephemeral elements of poetry.

Mostly makars were appointed by the monarch - and turned out poems for state occasions.

Today it's the first minister who decides the name of the national makar.

Labour first minister Jack McConnell made the first appointment -Edwin Morgan - in 2004.

Morgan was ill with cancer at the time, and few could have imagined how well he'd embrace the role - writing a string of popular and public poems.

When Morgan died last August, the SNP government decided to continue the post.

For the past few months they've been consulting the small literary community for their views and one name has come to the fore.

Not only is Liz Lochhead a hugely popular and populist poet with a body of work stretching back over four decades but she was a close personal friend of Edwin Morgan.

As a woman, and a feminist, she offers an obvious comparison to UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

And like Morgan, she also moves easily between languages and genres, an established playwright as well as a poet.

All of which will help.

While the government is shady on the details of what the role will entail, thankfully Liz Lochhead has never knowingly been lost for words and today she said she hoped she'd be seen as an ambassador, particularly in encouraging young people to read poetry, and read it aloud.

She says she hopes it will encourage her to write more, but won't be writing poetry to order.

And aptly her first official outing will be later this week,when she opens the Burns birthplace museum in Alloway.

Another makar - popular and pleasing - who's only truly being recognised 252 years after his birth with a museum dedicated to his life and work.

It's a good week to be a poet in Scotland.

It's hard not to feel slightly depressed about the subject of Peter Mullan's new film.

Writ high in giant letters around Glasgow's Cineworld Cinema - NEDS.

Film critics have been raving about it.

The San Sebastian Film festival gave it their top award - and another for its teenage star Conor McCarron.

But do we need another film about Glasgow's grim and depressing gang culture?

Mullan certainly believes so.

It's been almost a decade since his last film - Magdalene Sisters - and this was on his radar long before. He describes the story as "personal but not autobiographical".

His own experience of gang culture was on the fringes but enough to inform the film's narrative.

It does have its funny moments - not least the best schoolteacher cameo, from Gary Lewis, since Chic Murray in Gregory's Girl - but mostly it's a sad and moving story about a young boy let down by his friends and his family (Mullan gives a searing performance as his drunken, violent father).

Its authenticity is further helped by the fact that Mullan - and his brother, the casting director - chose to use untrained local youngsters, rather than the usual source of the Scottish Youth Theatre.

The result is some genuinely unsettling, and adrenalin-fuelled performances.

Then there's McCarron, himself, his stocky, sweet-faced John McGill is a far cry from the Mullans' vision of a wiry youth - but his performance is both enthralling and disturbing, as he descends from studious kid to out of control teenager to full-blown pyschotic.

His performance has been compared to De Niro - not bad for a boy, whose main ambition until now was completing a course in heating insulation at Cardonald College.

The ending is surreal and ambiguous.

You can only hope McGill transcends his circumstances - and finds a way out of the spiralling tit-for-tat violence.

Mullan himself may have only been on the sidelines of gang culture, but he moved on to tell his tale, a heartbreaking story of the pointless cycle of violence which continues today.

In a sad ironic twist, McCarron's own father is currently serving a prison service for the knife murder of a customer in his Glasgow pub.

Mullan is quick to defend his young actor.

"We carried out thorough checks of all the cast when we began filming - to make sure no-one was involved in anything untoward, particularly with over 16s working with under 16s.

"This (the murder) happened when filming was finished and we were in post production so it wasn't an issue at the time.

"Thankfully we live in society where the sins of mums, fathers, uncles, siblings should not be visited on the individual.

"For me it's unspeakably unfair because you cannot have the crimes of relatives determining the lives of a complete innocent who had nothing to do with the crime."

So do we need another film about gangs? Bafta clearly don't think so.

The film was completely ignored on their shortlist announced earlier.

But Mullan is unfazed.

"I don't think Bafta juries watch half the films that are out there so I'm really not disappointed.

"I'm much more interested in how the film goes down with real audiences when it's released next week. That's what really counts."

NEDS is on general release from Friday.

The outside of the new Riverside Museum has already taken shape. And having had a little sneaky tour, I can tell you the interior is also progressing well.

The curve of the walls and the high ceilings are obvious from the exterior but the biggest surprise inside is the lime green colour scheme, perhaps over-exaggerated by the work lighting but still something of a contrast to the steely grey outside.

One of the first exhibits, a winding road alongside the curve of the entrance hall, is likely to become a firm favourite.

A selection of vehicles telling the story of the road tests carried out on the twists and turns of the Rest and Be Thankful by various car manufacturers.

Behind that, the museum's flagship exhibit - a Glasgow street at the end of the late 1890s.

Main street is based on the much loved Kelvin Street - from the old Transport Museum but its been expanded, not least by allowing visitors to step inside the shops (except the dress shop, which true to the original, remains exclusive to only a handful of wealthy Glaswegians).

Many of the shops are real businesses, reclaimed after closure.

The Rendezvous café may be familiar to anyone from the city's Duke Street area.

As well as the lighter subjects - ice-cream making and frothy coffees abound - the café deals with the very real isolation many Italian immigrants found on settling in Scotland, particularly in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The Mitre Bar has also been removed - lock stock and barrel - from its location in the Merchant City.

There's also other recognisable businesses of the era - from a cobblers, to a pawnbrokers and a photography studio.

Not to mention a saddlers - big business for the then Glasgow Corporation, which had up to 3,000 horses to care for.

Part of the reason the old museum had to close so long before this place opened, is that a subway train and station had to be installed in the foundations of the new building.

That meant curators having to dismantle the first street.

As well as Main Street, there are two more avenues which explore Glasgow's history between the 30s and the 60s and between the 1960s and the 1980s, with vehicles and shop fronts getting more and more modern the further up the street you walk.

Opinions will be divided about the "car wall" where up to 40 vehicles can be viewed from above and below.

It's an idea stolen from a 1920s car showroom - vehicles can be swapped over on hydraulic platforms - and while it will thrill many younger visitors, it's bound to dismay those who simply want to walk round an old favourite.

Pride of place goes to the South African Railways locomotive, made in Polmadie in 1945, and left to rust in a sidings in South Africa in the 1980s.

Saved from the scrap heap, and lovingly restored, it's now one of the most impressive exhibits on show.

There's still lots to negotiate - from the tender for the river crossing from neighbouring Govan, to the displays for the various "quiet spaces" around the museum, one of which will be devoted to the ongoing story of Lockerbie.

The Glenlee still has to be moved down-river to its permanent moorings outside.

But the setting is crucial to it all. Those ships in glass cases, so lost in the upstairs rooms of the old museum, make perfect sense when viewed alongside the river, which would once have resounded to the sounds of scores of shipyards.

The river is a vital part of the story of Glasgow's history.

And this museum - due to open in the spring - could prove to be a vital part of the revival of the river itself.