THE big Festival feast is done and I sense minds turning their attention towards the new autumn musical seasons, which are imminent though not quite here yet. There’s no hiatus as such, but there is a tiny lull or transitional moment of just about a week before things start to move again. So in that momentary pause, let’s just reset the board a bit to take account of the few changes and get some of the main players, movers and shakers in place.

There has been much brouhaha surrounding the end of Donald Runnicles’ reign as chief conductor of the BBC SSO and his “last ever” performance in that title role in the final Usher Hall concert of the Edinburgh International Festival last weekend. Quite right. But let’s just make sure that folk are aware he’ll be back with the band as soon as November, sporting his new title of Conductor Emeritus; though you could probably put money on the fact that he’ll be here less frequently in the future. I had an amusing encounter last week in Edinburgh with a punter and Runnicles fan who’d misread the Emeritus bit of his new honorary title and proclaimed that, while he was disappointed at Runnicles’ departure, he was delighted about his new appointment as conductor of the Emirates. Now there would be a lucrative gig.

Meanwhile, Runnicles’ successor, Dane Thomas Dausgaard, will be getting his feet firmly under the desk. He’s already been here a number of times and has a few SSO gigs under his belt. Some folks are waiting to be persuaded or convinced about what he’s doing. It’ll take time, however it develops, but Dausgaard will be here and under way within a few weeks, and we’ll soon be able to form impressions.

There are changes in management too. Roy McEwan has retired as chief executive of the SCO, fully replaced, after a hand-over period, by Gavin Reid who, formerly, was director of the BBC SSO. What happens next at the SCO remains to be seen, though there will unquestionably be renewed calls from some within the ranks for “more work” and “more touring”. The SCO, I should remind you, is ultimately a freelance band: they only get paid when they play; there are no contracts. And the BBC SSO has a new orchestra director too, starting at the end of October. Nobody seems to know much about him. His name is Dominic Parker. He has been director of external relations at the Sage in Gateshead. He also worked for four years with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre and in relation to the Welsh College of Music and Drama.

This is not, you will gather, a season preview. There are numerous points and issues embedded in the above, and some of them will be assessed in the coming weeks, as the new season approaches. But there is one performance element we might usefully touch on today, and that concerns the Scottish Ensemble. The ensemble, essentially a small-scale string orchestra, is light on its feet and will be first out of the stocks next week and away like a hare on its first autumn tour. They have a lovely programme called American Life which they are taking on the road. It includes minimalist-y pieces by Philip Glass, Nico Muhly and John Adams, as well as arrangements of traditional spirituals and Aaron Copland’s gorgeous, down-home Appalachian Spring. The show hits the road on Wednesday in Dundee, before travelling to Inverness and Dumfries, arriving in Glasgow on Sunday 11 for a performance in the city at 3.30 in the afternoon. But it’s where they’re playing that is interesting.

The concert is billed as being staged in the cumbersomely-titled “New Auditorium, Glasgow Royal Concert Halls”. (The last word should be singular, not plural.) I don’t know what configuration of the super-versatile New Auditorium the Scottish Ensemble will use, but this will be the group’s first concert appearance there, as far as I know. And while the auditorium has been used before for private hires (for Celtic Connections, as an example) this could be an unusual first for a classical hire. I’ve already suggested the word “New” should be dropped, as the place isn’t new any longer. That one fell flat on its face. It’s possible that the room will eventually get a name of its own, but the RSNO might be holding out to get a “sponsored” title: (remember the Guinness Room in the old RSAMD?) So, for the time being, the auditorium will have to shoulder its bulky title for private hires (which will be from Glasgow Life, not the RSNO). When the RSNO itself is using the place, it will, in its publicity, just assume the relatively compact RSNO Centre moniker.