He's young and talented . . and the future of classical music

The orchestra is probably best known for its work under the celebrated conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, now aged 82.

Mr Ticciati first learned the piano aged eight and the violin a year later – much later than classical prodigies like Scotland's Nicola Benedetti.

It was at 13 he set his sights on being a conductor as he " wanted to tell the whole story, rather than sit on one instrument".

A group of SCO musicians lobbied for their bosses to offer the young conductor a contract after working under him through just three performances on a Highlands tour last year.

The attraction was mutual; Mr Ticciati said that in each concert he found "new colours, new shapes" with the orchestra, saying its musical capacity was "phenomenal".

Roy McEwan, the SCO's managing director, said: "For a young man, he has an amazingly charismatic stage presence and charm – personal charm."

He will lead the orchestra in Edinburgh for the first time late next year, with luck in the refurbished Usher Hall.

Mr Ticciati's conducting career has been nothing short of meteoric. At 15 he first took up the baton to conduct an amateur male choir; by his early 20s, he was a veteran of concert halls from London to Milan.

"My brother and sister played and music was always in the family," he said. "My grandparents were musicians from Italy."

His father's father, Miso Ticciati, was a well-known conductor and arranger. Like his mentor, Sir Simon Rattle, he dropped violin for percussion as a youth musician, to survey the orchestra from a different perspective.

He added: "It was a desire and a wish and a thought ever since I was 13, that this was something I wanted to be."

At Cambridge, he conducted the university symphony orchestra as well as his first opera.

There has been a trend of younger conductors at Scottish orchestras.

Garry Walker, an associate conductor at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at 26, said: "There may be now a more specialist route to conducting, because the training starts earlier, and people mature younger."

Last year, Mr Ticciati was confirmed as a rising star when he was named music director of Glyndebourne on Tour, the famous opera festival's touring arm. He is also music director of the Gvle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, though he will give that up next year.

His older brother is a professional violinist, and Mr Ticciati came to Edinburgh as a teenager to watch him play. Two of the greatest names in British conducting, Sir Colin Davis and Sir Simon Rattle, helped foster his career in his teens.

In 2006, at 24, he became the youngest debut conductor at the Salzburg Festival, conducting Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione, with the recording later released by Deutsche Grammophon, the leading classical label.