London Philharmonic Orchestra 2015-16 season brochure

London Philharmonic Orchestra 2015/16 Concert Season at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

2015 highlights

September

October

November

December

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski opens the season with the continuation of his Mahler symphony cycle, leading the Orchestra in the composer’s radical Seventh Symphony.

Regarded by many as Poland’s greatest living composer, Krzysztof Penderecki joins the Orchestra to conduct his own works including the UK premiere of his Harp Concerto, performed by Xavier de Maistre.

Master of Viennese classicism, Paul Lewis performs Beethoven’s theatrical Piano Concerto No. 3 before Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Mahler’s spirited Fifth Symphony.

Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, a keen champion of contemporary music, gives the world premiere of the Second Violin Concerto by the Orchestra’s Composer in Residence, Magnus Lindberg.

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2016 highlights

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January

February

March

April

June

Renowned soprano Soile Isokoski makes a welcome return performing Richard Strauss’s finale to his life’s work – Four Last Songs – under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

As part of the Shakespeare400 celebrations, Osmo Vänskä conducts music from Sibelius’s Shakespeare-inspired The Tempest with mezzo soprano Lilli Paasikivi.

The Orchestra celebrates the music of Rachmaninoff with a screening of David Lean’s romantic film Brief Encounter, with the famous soundtrack accompaniment performed live by the Orchestra.

The Shakespeare400 anniversary culminates in a gala concert conducted

by Vladimir Jurowski, directed

by Simon Callow. A stellar cast of soloists joins the festivities, which include music by Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Britten.

For the final FUNharmonics family concert, the Orchestra joins forces with Globe Education to present a magical and unique performance based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Welcome to our 2015/16 season We have a fantastic season to look forward to, including 11 typically imaginative concerts with Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski, and as part of the worldwide Shakespeare anniversary celebrations in 2016, we present a fascinating series of Shakespeareinspired concerts and events (see page 20).

I would also like to take this opportunity to warmly welcome the Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor, Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

When I first heard Andrés conduct in February 2011, I was immediately struck by his remarkable energy and musicianship, electrifying conducting, and sheer ability to communicate with the audience. He has since appeared with us on three occasions, during which the incredible rapport with the players was immediately clear to see – such a crucial ingredient for memorable performances. So I am really delighted to officially bring Andrés into the LPO family – he follows in the footsteps of a prestigious list of previous Principal Guest Conductors of the Orchestra that has included Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Mariss Jansons, Kurt Masur, Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

A selection of this season’s concerts will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and available for 30 days online bbc.co.uk/radio3

Colombian-born and Viennese-trained, at just 36 years old Andrés is already one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation, and will combine his activities with us alongside his other positions as Music Director of the Houston Symphony and Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. During our 2015/16 season he conducts a variety of works by Dvorˇák and Mahler (25 November), Richard Strauss, Khachaturian and Stravinsky (26 February). I hope you will join us and experience his radiant music-making for yourself.

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director

‘There is no doubting Andrés Orozco-Estrada’s rapport with the LPO, nor his enthusiasm on the podium. A bundle of energy, he exudes a bonhomie that suggests he is happy to be here, and that in itself engenders a direct rapport with the audience.’

Classical Source, January 2014

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September

Wednesday 23 September 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Mahler Symphony No. 7 Vladimir Jurowski conductor In 1905, as a follow-up to his intense, dark and voiceless Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Gustav Mahler completed the most enigmatic symphony he’d write: the Seventh. The bleak emotional world of its predecessors was immediately noticeable in music that appeared to storm new territories in both its radical harmonies and its wild scoring. But in the Symphony’s celebrated ‘night music’ serenades – chilling, eerie and yet strangely calming nocturnes for orchestra, one founded on the sonority of a gently strumming guitar – Mahler appears to look elsewhere, to a realm far beyond his own. Vladimir Jurowski opens the season with one of Mahler’s most inscrutable, fascinating and striking creations.

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Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor

© Chris Christodolou

Please note there will be no interval during this performance.

September

Saturday 26 September 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Taneyev St John of Damascus Tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini Sibelius Symphony No. 2 Vladimir Jurowski conductor London Philharmonic Choir ‘There is no greater pain than to recall a time of happiness in a time of misery.’ So wrote Tchaikovsky, quoting Dante, at the top of the score for his tempestuous tone poem Francesca da Rimini, which recounts in music the tragic tale of a woman torn from her love and forced to marry another. Here Vladimir Jurowski frames Tchaikovsky’s vivid, brutal work with Sergei Taneyev’s Opus 1 – his heartfelt response to words by Tolstoy infused with Russian folk and liturgical music – and Sibelius’s pining Second Symphony, a hope-fuelled work that tells both of broad, national struggles and painful domestic tragedies.

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October

Saturday 3 October 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Oliver Knussen Scriabin Settings Sibelius Violin Concerto Scriabin Symphony No. 3 (The Divine Poem) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Leonidas Kavakos violin As Alexander Scriabin started work on his Third Symphony in 1904, his outlandish philosophical and religious world views began to sharpen up.

In this piece, the composer set out to depict a Nietzschean belief in the liberation of the human spirit through three extraordinary musical chapters: a spasmodic, conflict-strewn opening Allegro, a voluptuous, melodic song and a final ‘divine game’ which, through its mood of radiant vitality, drives the Symphony home with unequivocal brilliance. Scriabin’s ‘Divine Poem’ is the perfect counterpoint to the enigmatic Violin Concerto by Sibelius, played here by a violinist who made his name with exceptional performances of the piece, Leonidas Kavakos.

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Leonidas Kavakos

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© Marco Borggreve

Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE.

October

Wednesday 14 October 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Krzysztof Penderecki Adagio for Strings (UK premiere) Krzysztof Penderecki Harp Concerto (UK premiere)* Krzysztof Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima Shostakovich Symphony No. 6 Krzysztof Penderecki conductor Xavier de Maistre harp

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© Felix Broede

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Krzysztof Penderecki and Xavier de Maistre discuss Penderecki’s new Harp Concerto.

Xavier de Maistre

After waves of enthusiasm greeted his Fifth Symphony, Dmitri Shostakovich had the dubious honour of being fully ‘rehabilitated’ into Soviet life by the authorities. As he focused on film music in 1938, a new symphony began to form in Shostakovich’s mind. It started as a vocal hymn to Lenin, but it became a wordless orchestral canvas rocked by imbalance and confusion.

After an opening movement stalked by darkness and anguish, the Symphony gives way to brittle, short-lived jollification – forced and hollow, Shostakovich’s acerbic reflection of his political predicament. Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki conducts Shostakovich’s Sixth here, after the UK premiere of his own Harp Concerto, Adagio for Strings and his profound Threnody. *Jointly commissioned by Orchestre de Paris, DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España and Sinfonietta Cracovia.

Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music Programme.

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Sue Thomas Flute Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE

‘ This was a whiplash interpretation, swift to scorch and devastatingly focused.’

Martin Höhmann First Violin

The Arts Desk, September 2014

October

Friday 23 October 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Bizet Symphony in C Ravel Piano Concerto in G major Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 (Organ) Thierry Fischer conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano Catherine Edwards organ

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Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Children from London Music Masters’ immersive music education programme perform side by side with LPO musicians in the premiere of an innovative new work by composer Gavin Higgins.

Benjamin Grosvenor

© Decca Classics/Sophie Wright

When he started work on a score that would ‘take full advantage of advances in modern orchestration’, few would have expected the resulting piece by Camille Saint-Saëns to use a traditional instrument like the organ to such earth-shattering effect. But the composer might have been referring to the piano, played by four hands, that ripples its way so enchantingly through the ‘Organ’ Symphony as a delicate counterpoint to the organ’s thundering chords.

Saint-Saëns’s younger compatriot Maurice Ravel saw a completely different use for the piano when he walked the streets of Harlem and, on hearing the wild syncopations and exotic blue notes spilling from the jazz bars, was inspired to write his toe-tapping Piano Concerto.

October

Wednesday 28 October 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven Symphony No. 1 Thomas Larcher Violin Concerto Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Markus Stenz conductor Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin

Contemporaries

© Marco Borggreve

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One day in St Petersburg in 1910, Igor Stravinsky had a vision: ‘I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite; sage elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death … sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring.’

When Stravinsky set his vision to music for the Ballets Russes three years later, the result was one of the most controversial and consistently electrifying pieces of music in history – a piece in which rhythm suddenly took priority over melody in a terrifying and unprecedented example of musical brutality. Markus Stenz conducts The Rite of Spring following Beethoven’s arresting First Symphony and the Violin Concerto written in 2008 with ‘cinematic logic’

by Thomas Larcher, and performed by the 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year, Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

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Patricia Kopatchinskaja

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October

Saturday 31 October 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Bruckner Symphony No. 5 (1878 Nowak edition) Stanisław Skrowaczewski conductor Anton Bruckner was troubled by problems both professional and personal as he started work on his Fifth Symphony in February 1875. He had little money, minimal recognition and his career was in crisis following the abolition of his post at the Vienna Conservatoire. Bruckner longed for the simpler life he’d left behind in Linz, a longing that colours the pained, poignant oboe theme Bruckner used in the Symphony’s Adagio, the first movement he wrote. Yet still the Symphony emerged as a colossal, imposing and inspiring work, one that communicates Bruckner’s struggling creative energy perhaps more acutely than any other by the composer. Tragically, it was a symphony he never heard performed.

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Stanisław Skrowaczewski

© Toshiyuki Urano

Please note there will be no interval during this performance.

November

Wednesday 4 November 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 Mahler Symphony No. 5 Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Paul Lewis piano

© Josep Molina/Harmonia Mundi

If anyone in the audience had been following Mahler’s personal and musical journey in 1904 when his Fifth Symphony was first performed, they’d probably have had the feeling of being plunged into a whole new world. Gone was the song-like radiance that had dominated the Fourth Symphony. In its place was a new strength, spirit and fight – all Mahler’s demons and doubts thrust up against a proclamation of love so strong it hurt. Fresh from an acclaimed recording of the Symphony, Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts it here alongside Beethoven’s most fresh and spirited piano concerto, played by Beethoven pianist par excellence Paul Lewis.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Paul Lewis

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November

Friday 6 November 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Castro Intermezzo de Atzimba Federico Ibarra Sinfonía No. 2 Various Mexican songs Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story Revueltas Sensemayá Arturo Márquez Danzón No. 2 Alondra de la Parra conductor Javier Camarena tenor

This concert is part of The Year of Mexico in the United Kingdom 2015.

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Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.30pm Royal Festival Hall LPO Soundworks, our dynamic cross-arts ensemble for young composers and instrumentalists, presents its first collaborative performance of the season, inspired by the hypnotic Mexican music in tonight’s concert.

Alondra de la Parra

© Leonardo Manzo

Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra comes to London to unleash her zeal for orchestral music from her homeland, music she feels ‘deserves a place in every orchestra’s core repertoire.’ But de la Parra believes Mexican orchestral music is about more than folklore and colour. ‘The modern Mexico is eclectic and baroque in every sense of the word: a rich spectrum of possibilities and exquisite taste.’

Join the Orchestra and this truly unique conductor for the slithering sounds of Revueltas’s Sensemayá, Ibarra’s ear-teasing Sinfonía No. 2 and Márquez’s toe-tapping Danzón No. 2 alongside a selection of popular songs from Mexico.

November

Wednesday 11 November 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Fauré Suite, Pelléas et Mélisande Magnus Lindberg Violin Concerto No. 1 Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales Debussy La mer Robin Ticciati conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin

© Georgia Bertazzi

Robin Ticciati leads the London Philharmonic Orchestra in this celebration of exquisite orchestral craftsmanship. At the heart of this concert is the Violin Concerto written in 2006

by LPO Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg, a piece whose contained proportions and etched delicacy cradle music of striking power and drama.

Lindberg’s Concerto has the same sense of clarity and luminous restraint that imbues Fauré’s tender reflection of the tragedy of Pelléas and Mélisande and reigns in Ravel’s teasing waltzes.

To finish comes Debussy’s orchestral depiction of the sea, unrivalled in its subtlety and evocation.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Christian Tetzlaff

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Marie-Anne Mairesse Second Violin

‘ This was an extraordinary performance. The responsiveness of the LPO strings and the peerless wind and brass playing showed the extent to which the LPO has become Jurowski’s orchestra.’

Classical Source, September 2014

John Ryan Principal Horn

November

Wednesday 25 November 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Dvorˇák Cello Concerto Mahler Symphony No. 1 Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Johannes Moser cello It all began here: Mahler’s journey through a series of symphonies that represents his own spiritual biography. In his amazingly confident First Symphony of 1889 Mahler sought to lay his experiences and suffering out for all to hear.

The Symphony was cast in two parts: first the optimism and energy of youth; then the crisis of rejection and death. Yet it powers towards an exultant conclusion, overtly popular in style and suddenly imbued with a new confidence – confidence in life itself. This opening to Mahler’s extraordinary world is heard here after the concerto Antonín Dvorˇák believed ‘outstrips the other two concertos of mine’, his bewitching B minor Cello Concerto.

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6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Andrés Orozco-Estrada discusses his new role as the Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.

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Andrés Orozco-Estrada

© Werner Kmetitsch

Free pre-concert event

November

Friday 27 November 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Liadov From the Apocalypse Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 Sibelius Symphony No. 1 Susanna Mälkki conductor Beatrice Rana piano Susanna Mälkki makes her debut conducting the Orchestra in a concert culminating in the work that established one of the most significant symphonic composing careers in history: the gripping, insistent and ultimately uplifting First Symphony by the man who would discover a whole new world of symphonic expression, Jean Sibelius. Before that, silver medallist at the 2013 Van Cliburn Piano Competition, Beatrice Rana, plays Prokofiev’s sardonic and virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 2. Mälkki opens the concert with an imposing tone poem from a composer who suffered more than most: the terrifying From the Apocalypse by the near-forgotten Russian Romantic Anatol Liadov.

© Simon Fowler

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Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Susanna Mälkki

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December

Friday 4 December 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Puccini Tosca (excerpts) Rota Suite, La Strada Respighi Pines of Rome Enrique Mazzola conductor Maria Luigia Borsi Tosca Thiago Arancam Cavaradossi Vittorio Vitelli Scarpia Even Respighi was moved beyond expectation at the first performance of his imposing orchestral cityscape Pines of Rome, proclaiming to his wife Elsa that he felt ‘something odd in the pit of my stomach’ at the moment the last movement throttles upwards into a pummelling orchestral crescendo. Before Respighi’s spectacular tone poem, Enrique Mazzola conducts more music with Rome at its heart: Italian film maestro Nino Rota’s sparkling music for the ballet (and later film) La Strada, and excerpts from Puccini’s Tosca, arguably his most intense, raw, cruel and compulsive opera.

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Maria Luigia Borsi

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© Richard Crean

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December

Wednesday 9 December 2015 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Wagenaar Overture, Cyrano de Bergerac Magnus Lindberg Violin Concerto No. 2 (world premiere)* Beethoven Symphony No. 7 Jaap van Zweden conductor Frank Peter Zimmermann violin

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Free pre-concert event 5.15pm – 5.45pm Royal Festival Hall The culmination of an intensive LPO composition project, GCSE music students from South London schools perform their own work supported

by LPO musicians.

© Franz Hamm

Free pre-concert event

Not until the upheavals of the 20th century would another composer conceive of a piece so controlled and driven by rhythm as Beethoven did in his Seventh Symphony. Here is a work in which you hear the controlling rhythms in almost every bar, whether in the propulsive energy of the outer movements or in the inevitable tread of the slow march. Beethoven’s most unusual, fascinating and bold symphony is preceded here by the world premiere of the Second Violin Concerto

by Magnus Lindberg, just a month after the Orchestra’s performance of his first concerto for the instrument (11 November). Jaap van Zweden takes to the podium for this concert of bold orchestral statements. *Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg discusses the world premiere of his Second Violin Concerto.

Frank Peter Zimmermann

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Shakespeare400

‘ Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love.’

Antony and Cleopatra, 2.5.1-2

Hector Berlioz spoke for dozens of composers before and after him when he claimed to be ‘struck like a thunderbolt’ by Shakespeare’s words. For four and a half centuries, the most admired playwright and poet in history has inspired music both intimate and grand, devastating and uplifting. Some composers felt the full force of Shakespeare’s art in the ardent years of their youth; some waited for the wisdom of old age before daring to approach Shakespeare’s creativity with their own. In almost every case, it brought from those composers some of the most vivid, dramatic and psychologically affecting music they would write.

In collaboration with some of London’s leading cultural, creative and educational institutions, the London Philharmonic Orchestra joins Shakespeare400 with a celebration of the Bard’s influence on music and his love for it. During 2016, five concerts contain major works based on Shakespearian stories; a sixth presents an all-Shakespeare programme curated by

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Simon Callow, one of the finest dramatic exponents of Shakespeare currently at work.

Beyond the main stage, our season includes talks and readings, curated with expert guidance from the Academic Director of Shakespeare400, Gordon McMullan, insight events and performances with a Shakespearian theme by musicians from two of our major education initiatives: LPO Soundworks and Foyle Future Firsts. We also welcome students from the Royal College of Music, who will give a post-concert Shakespeare-inspired jazz performance to bring the celebrations to a rousing close.

In the 400th year since his death, Shakespeare’s influence has never inspired creativity more vibrant or diverse. And music continues to enjoy a special place in that artistic conversation.

‘The man who hath not music in himself … is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils’ Shakespeare had one of his characters say in The Merchant of Venice. He surely believed it himself, too, and left a legacy to prove it.

Shakespeare400 is a consortium of leading cultural, creative and educational organisations, co-ordinated by the London Shakespeare Centre and the Cultural Institute at King’s College London, which will mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016. During this quatercentenary year, partners will celebrate the vibrancy of Shakespeare’s influence on national and global culture through a connected series of public performances including music, theatre, opera, dance, ballet, exhibitions, educational events and other creative activities in the capital and beyond.

Shakespeare400

A life’s work. A 400-year legacy.

A year of celebrations.

Look for the Shakespeare400 mark against the concerts and events from January 2016 that form part of the Orchestra’s Shakespeare celebrations.

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January

Saturday 23 January 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Mozart Serenade No. 8 (Notturno), K286 Lindberg Gran Duo R Strauss Duett-Concertino for clarinet and bassoon R Strauss Four Last Songs Vladimir Jurowski conductor Soile Isokoski soprano By 1948, Richard Strauss had witnessed the destruction of his country from within. Desperate to ignite a cultural rebirth in Germany, he lobbied officials relentlessly to rebuild orchestras and opera houses, but it seemed futile. In a final act of resignation, Strauss wrote his Four Last Songs.

‘Now the day has made me tired’ his soprano sings in Beim Schlafengehen. Strauss’s world was gone forever; these songs its moving epitaph.

Soile Isokoski sings them here, after serenades by both Strauss and Mozart, and Gran Duo, Magnus Lindberg’s tilting of orchestral possibility in which he writes only for bright winds against dark brass, contrasting and merging the sonorities of each as he does.

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Soile Isokoski

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January

Wednesday 27 January 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Schnittke Pianissimo Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 Bruckner Symphony No. 3 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Natalia Gutman cello

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As Bruckner’s Third Symphony creeps into life through an awed hush, it reveals the composer’s regard for his two great musical heroes: Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner.

But this was also the symphony with which Bruckner properly revealed to this world his own voice, in all its grandeur and individuality.

From the majestic lone trumpet of its opening to the huge, overarching structure those chiselled notes engender, Bruckner’s Third was one that heralded a new sense of breadth and awe that symphonic music hadn’t visited before.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts this monumental piece after the dashing drive of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2.

© Chris Christodolou

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Vladimir Jurowski conducts the LPO’s Foyle Future Firsts in a selection from Shostakovich’s darkly satirical incidental music to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Vladimir Jurowski

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January

Saturday 30 January 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) Alexander Raskatov Green Mass (world premiere)* Vladimir Jurowski conductor Elena Vassilieva soprano Iestyn Davies countertenor Toby Spence tenor Nikolay Didenko bass ‘I miss Russia, the land of forest and fields. I miss the space.’ So said Alexander Raskatov recently, referring to the work he was writing for Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a setting of the Latin Mass, with added texts in five languages dedicated to the beauty of nature.

At this concert Jurowski and the Orchestra present the world premiere of Raskatov’s Green Mass, alongside the symphony in which Beethoven’s relentless struggles with fate are temporarily set aside. Beethoven himself returns to nature in the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, his glimpse of the cheerful feelings of childhood and a thanksgiving for the wonders of the earth. *Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

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6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Alexander Raskatov discusses the world premiere of his Green Mass.

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Iestyn Davies

© Marco Borggreve

Free pre-concert event

February

Wednesday 3 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Dvorˇák Overture, Otello Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello Dvorˇák Symphony No. 6 Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lisa Batiashvili violin Maximilian Hornung cello

Contemporaries Subscription Series

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© Sammy Hart/Deutsche Grammophon

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Professor Russ McDonald, Goldsmiths University, and Professor Clare McManus, University of Roehampton, reflect on Othello’s popularity with adaptors and composers, and its role as a lightning rod for perceptions of ethnicity, religion and gender.

Lisa Batiashvili

After a rapturous performance of his Slavonic Rhapsody with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1879, Dvorˇák promised the orchestra and its conductor Hans Richter a new symphony. When Dvorˇák played through the score at the piano a year later, Richter embraced him after each movement.

Richter eventually conducted the Symphony here in London in 1882, a work whose unprecedented breadth and power and stream of unfolding, growing ideas made the composer’s name in this city. One commentator has said of the piece that it ‘outstrips Brahms in its radiance and freshness’. Judge for yourself as Lisa Batiashvili and Maximilian Hornung perform the ‘endless love song between two instruments’ that is Brahms’s Double Concerto.

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February

Friday 5 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Gershwin Piano Concerto in F Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano In 1906 Rachmaninoff and his family left a politically turbulent Russia behind and escaped to Dresden. Here the composer relaxed, attended concerts and experienced one of the most productive periods of his life. Among its first fruits was his Second Symphony, a work that unlocked a new emotional power within the composer and saw him master both the orchestra and the symphonic form with flowing themes, vital rhythms and sumptuous textures.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts it here after a piece by Gershwin pulsating with the vibrance and energy of his New York home: the toe-tapping, dance-infested Piano Concerto with one of its finest exponents, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, at the piano.

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Yannick Nézet-Séguin

© Marco Borggreve

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February

Wednesday 10 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Dvorˇák Piano Concerto Sibelius The Tempest, Suites 1 & 2 (excerpts) Osmo Vänskä conductor Stephen Hough piano Lilli Paasikivi mezzo soprano

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Free pre-concert events

© Sim Canetty-Clarke

5.00pm – 5.30pm Royal Festival Hall Our second performance by South London GCSE student composers contributes to the Shakespeare400 celebrations with brand new pieces inspired by Sibelius’s The Tempest.

In celebration of the 150 years since the birth of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, perhaps his most significant living advocate Osmo Vänskä conducts some of the last music the composer wrote: Vänskä’s own narrated arrangement of excerpts from the orchestral suites for The Tempest, based on incidental music written in 1925 for a performance of the play in Copenhagen. This most ambitious of Sibelius’s theatre scores sees the composer exploring the tantalising new sonorities and techniques that might have come to fruition were it not for his famous creative block of three decades. All the magic and mystery of The Tempest is heard here after a rare performance by Stephen Hough of Dvorˇák’s compelling and virtuosic Piano Concerto.

6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Gordon McMullan, Academic Director Shakespeare400, explores the ‘late styles’ of writers, artists and composers, including Sibelius and Shakespeare.

Stephen Hough

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February

Friday 12 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Nicolai Overture, The Merry Wives of Windsor Korngold Violin Concerto Elgar Symphony No. 1 Osmo Vänskä conductor Hyeyoon Park violin

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Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Oliver Urquhart Irvine, Royal Librarian, talks about Shakespeare in the Royal Collections at Windsor, while Sonia Massai, Professor of English, King’s College London, looks at global adaptations of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Hyeyoon Park

© Giorgia Bertazzi

When Elgar’s First Symphony received its premiere in 1908, Britain was languishing in a severe economic depression. Further afield, the once resplendent uniform of the British Empire seemed faded and tattered. Some believed ‘the symphony’ as a concept had had its day; Elgar thought passionately otherwise, but clearly doubted whether he was up to the task of proving it. He needn’t have worried. His First Symphony was a piece fuelled by love, hope and optimism that seemed to render all the social contexts and musicological arguments irrelevant. It remains one of the most courageous and uplifting orchestral creations this country has produced, and is played here after Korngold’s swashbuckling Violin Concerto.

Get to know the LPO ‌

#knowlpo

February

Wednesday 24 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony Vasily Petrenko conductor Augustin Hadelich violin

© Mark McNulty

Tchaikovsky didn’t write six symphonies; he wrote seven. The slippery, unnumbered ‘Manfred’ Symphony takes its name from a tortured character from Byron who wanders the Alps stalked by an enigmatic guilt. In this extraordinary and treacherously difficult work, Tchaikovsky’s orchestra moves from sombre yearning to angered argument, until a shattering moment of dazzling sunlight crashes into its final movement, a glimpse of hope before Manfred’s ultimate demise. This was the most extensive and challenging piece Tchaikovsky had written at the time of its premiere in 1886, a wild and unbridled vision of life and death that won Vasily Petrenko a Gramophone Award for his powerful 2008 recording.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Vasily Petrenko

See page 57 33

February

Friday 26 February 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

R Strauss Macbeth Khachaturian Violin Concerto Stravinsky The Firebird Suite (1945 version) Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Kristóf Baráti violin

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

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Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Dr Lucy Munro, Lecturer in Shakespeare, King’s College, London, places Strauss’s Overture in the context of the history of spectacular theatrical productions of Macbeth in the late nineteenth century.

Kristóf Baráti

© Pilvax Studio

The Stravinsky who would change music forever was first glimpsed in the luminous 1910 score The Firebird. In this blazing ballet music, Stravinsky unleashed the pictorial powers with which he would shock and enchant generations of theatregoers. The composer had found the perfect subject matter in the compelling collision of the evil powers of Kashchei the Magician with the forceful good of the irrepressible Firebird; the ballet would end in an infernal dance, ripe for Stravinsky’s own brand of violent syncopation.

Principal Guest Conductor Andrés OrozcoEstrada conducts the condensed Suite from the ballet alongside the rhythmic vivacity and emotional fervour of Khachaturian’s rhapsodic Violin Concerto.

March

Saturday 5 March 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 3 Zemlinsky Six Maeterlinck Songs Szymanowski Stabat Mater Vladimir Jurowski conductor Elz˙bieta Szmytka soprano Anne Sofie von Otter mezzo soprano Andrzej Dobber baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

© Ewa-Marie Rundquist

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Musicians from the LPO’s Foyle Future Firsts Development Programme present a feast of chamber music celebrating Shakespeare’s life and works.

Anne Sofie von Otter

In 1924 the Princesse de Polignac asked Karol Szymanowski to write a large work for soloists, choir and orchestra that might be considered a sort of Polish Requiem. Shortly afterwards, Szymanowski’s niece Ala died, and the composer settled on one of the most moving texts ever written: the Stabat Mater, a poem in which the mother of Christ witnesses her son’s crucifixion.

Szymanowski had the words translated into Polish to achieve the direct emotional effect that characterised his music, heightening the poem’s sense of violence. But his Stabat Mater is gentle as well as pained, a work that through its darkness captures a strange, uplifting hope.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts it here with Zemlinsky’s glistening, tender songs after Maeterlinck’s poetry.

Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music Programme.

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March

Wednesday 9 March 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Marc-André Hamelin piano

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts 36

See page 57

Marc-André Hamelin

© Sim Canetty-Clarke

In 1901, at the height of her affair with Alexander von Zemlinsky, ‘It Girl’ Alma Schindler unceremoniously dumped her lover to marry the big shot of Viennese composition, Gustav Mahler.

Zemlinsky was devastated. Still cherishing a framed photo of Alma, he began work on his orchestral tone poem Die Seejungfrau. But while the score’s depiction of the Little Mermaid’s hopeless dedication to an imaginary young boy clearly resonated with Zemlinsky, his work was no self-pitying tirade. It was, in fact, his coming of age – his discovery of a true musical voice.

Zemlinsky had glimpsed the triumph and joy of love, and thrust it all into this magical, kaleidoscopic score.

‘ All credit to the orchestra for offering these unfamiliar but eminently accessible items.’ Evening Standard, December 2014

Kate Birchall Second Violin Chair supported by David & Graham Fuller

Keith Millar Percussion

March

Friday 18 March 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Brief Encounter (film with live orchestra) David Charles Abell conductor Jayson Gillham piano

By arrangement with ITV Studios Global Entertainment & Park Circus Films.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk 38

Series discounts

See page 57

© ITV Studios Global Entertainment/Park Circus Films

If any film can be described as iconic, David Lean’s Brief Encounter of 1945 can – a story charged with passion and atmosphere as two ordinary adults discovered something deep and lifechanging on the platform of a suburban railway station. Pulsing through the film like an emotional express train is Rachmaninoff’s heart-rending Second Piano Concerto, rapturously proclaiming everything Laura and Alec felt but dare not speak. At this special concert a screening of the film with live orchestral soundtrack is preceded by a complete live performance of this most rousing of masterpieces, played by the winner of the 2014 Montreal Piano Competition, Jayson Gillham.

April

Saturday 9 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Marc-André Dalbavie Work for baritone and orchestra (UK premiere)* Brahms A German Requiem Christoph Eschenbach conductor Sarah Tynan soprano Matthias Goerne baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

© Marco Borggreve

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Our creative cross-arts ensemble, LPO Soundworks, takes the characters and words of The Bard of Avon as inspiration for its latest collaborative performance.

Matthias Goerne

In 1857, encouraged by his mentor Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms began work on his choral masterpiece A German Requiem.

Schumann hoped Brahms would deliver ‘wonderful glimpses of the spirit world’, and he wasn’t disappointed. What Brahms created was a Requiem unlike any other: a piece that carried the gift of spiritual comfort rather than the threat of impending judgment, conveying the weight of Germany’s cultural tradition in the process.

Christoph Eschenbach conducts Brahms’s A German Requiem here, after the UK premiere of a work written expressly for the German baritone Matthias Goerne by the master of orchestral colour, French composer Marc-André Dalbavie.

Please note there will be no interval during this performance. *Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.

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‘ Jurowski’s programming – sometimes visionary, sometimes quixotic, but always imaginative – makes every LPO concert an event.’

The Guardian, October 2014

Susanne Martens Viola

Daniel Newell Trumpet

April

Friday 15 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

De Falla The Three-cornered Hat (Suite No. 2) Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Concerto No. 1 Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet (excerpts) Jaime Martín conductor Miloš Karadaglic´ guitar

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

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Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Think you know Romeo and Juliet?

Gordon McMullan, Academic Director Shakespeare400, and colleagues set out to dispel the myths of this well known story.

Miloš Karadaglic´

© Margaret Malandruccolo

Long before the Kirov Ballet got round to staging their Romeo and Juliet ballet using Prokofiev’s music in 1940, the bulk of the score was widely heard in a suite in which the composer arranged the most vivid moments of the score for concert performance. Audiences can’t have been in any doubt as to the characters and events Prokofiev was describing in what is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable conjurings of character, mood and circumstance in musical history. Before this ground-shaking depiction of Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets comes a treat from star guitarist Miloš: Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s beautifully intoxicating Guitar Concerto No. 1.

April

Wednesday 20 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Honegger Pacific 231 Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 (Egyptian) Dukas La Péri Debussy Images Vladimir Jurowski conductor Javier Perianes piano

© Drew Kelley

After the success of his so-called ‘Impressionistic’ depictions of oceans and woodland animals, Claude Debussy set out to achieve ‘something new – a new reality’. This new reality he talked of was the world of Images, where the free brushstrokes of Impressionism were replaced by something altogether more precise and pointillist. Images contains some of Debussy’s most delicate and luminous music, as well as his heady visions of life south of the French border in Spain. Vladimir Jurowski conducts this evening of French music, which also includes Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto, filled with the spice and exoticism of Egypt, and Honegger’s orchestral depiction of a pummelling steam train, Pacific 231.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Vladimir Jurowski

See page 57 43

April

Saturday 23 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Anniversary gala concert Scenes from: Verdi Otello Tchaikovsky Hamlet Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Berlioz Roméo et Juliette Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Thomas Adès The Tempest Walton Henry V Verdi Falstaff

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Simon Callow director Soloists including: Kate Royal soprano Allison Bell soprano Iestyn Davies countertenor Ronald Samm tenor Simon Keenlyside baritone ‘I have had him in my hands from my earliest youth’, said Giuseppe Verdi of William Shakespeare, ‘I have read and reread him continually.’ Verdi wasn’t alone. Shakespeare’s body of plays has exercised more influence over composers and musicians than anything else in literature bar the Bible. This concert opens with music from Verdi’s setting of Othello – probably the most bold and significant music he would write – and closes with music from his final, ebullient masterpiece Falstaff. In between come orchestral and operatic settings from Britten, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Prokofiev and Adès, each filled with character and overflowing with drama. Vladimir Jurowski conducts the music, which is interspersed with readings from the plays directed by Simon Callow, as we mark the 400th year since the death of the greatest playwright that ever lived.

Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE.

Contemporaries Subscription Series

Tickets £12 – £48 Premium seats £75 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts 44

Simon Callow

See page 57

April

Saturday 30 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4 R Strauss An Alpine Symphony Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alexey Zuev piano

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

The last piece of the season is also the last, largest and longest in the spectacular line of tone poems written by the great musical conjuror Richard Strauss. Strauss loved the Alps and long dreamed of writing a piece based on them. When he finally found the time to do so in 1914, he went all-out for his new symphonic homage to the mountains. The orchestra wasn’t just swollen to 150 players, it included 12 off-stage horns as well as wind and thunder machines. Strauss’s magnificent journey from tentative sunrise to transcendent sunset has to be heard live to be believed, and blazes into life here after the similarly long-breathed phrases and magnetic impulse of Rachmaninoff’s final piano concerto.

© Drew Kelley

Free post-concert event 9.45pm – 10.30pm Level 2 Foyer Bar, Royal Festival Hall In a rousing finale to our Shakespeare celebrations, the Royal College of Music Big Band, directed by Mark Armstrong, performs Duke Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder, based on the work of William Shakespeare.

Vladimir Jurowski

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FUNharmonics

FUNharmonics Family Concerts Royal Festival Hall TELLING TALES This season three very individual family concerts explore storytelling through music. We’ve got pirate adventures with ‘Billy’s Band’ – a new story by multi-talented LPO musician Dan Newell, a special celebration for the Roald Dahl centenary, and we also take a look at Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in an exciting new collaboration with Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe.

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All images © Mariona Vilarós

At just one hour long, our FUNharmonics concerts are the ideal way to introduce your family to the delights of orchestral music. We recommend them for children aged 6–11. We do hope you’ll join us.

Sunday 5 June 2016 12.00 noon – 1.00pm

PIRATES!

BOTTOM’S DREAM

Come on board for a brand new swashbuckling story in the ‘Billy’s Band’ series, brought to life by the LPO with a shipshape selection of sea-themed music. Will Billy’s musicians be able to escape the pirate ambush or will they walk the plank? Shiver me timbers!

Lose yourself in the woods with the LPO and Globe Education in this special musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Expect enchantment and confusion, and a bit of silliness along the way, told through a magical mix of words and music.

FUNharmonics

Sunday 8 November 2015 12.00 noon – 1.00pm

Saturday 20 February 2016 12.00 noon – 1.00pm

Children £5 – £9 Adults £10 – £18 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts

See page 57

Musical stories for children Available on the Orchestra’s own label as a CD or download. Visit lpo.org.uk/recordings or order the CD on 020 7840 4242 or through all good retailers.

A ROALD DAHL CELEBRATION

To mark the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, the LPO invites you to a gloriumptious musical celebration inspired by one of the most extraordinary imaginations in children’s literature. Our music will conjure up a world of dreams and adventure, invention and mischief, and take you to the heart of Roald Dahl’s most well-loved characters. his concert is part of Southbank Centre’s T Imagine Children’s Festival

Come and join the party!

10.00am – 2.00pm Throughout the day there are free musical activities around the building offering a fun and interactive way-in to the concert, and opportunities for children to ‘have a go’ at different orchestral instruments under expert instruction.

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David Lale Cello

‘ From the goosestepping to the ballistic explosions of brass and the thunderous tattoos of timpani, this was a war machine activated with military precision.’

Evening Standard, September 2014

Recordings

London Philharmonic Orchestra Label Live, studio and archive recordings from our catalogue including critically acclaimed recordings with Jurowski, Tennstedt and Haitink are available from lpo.org.uk/recordings, London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 (Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm), all good retail outlets and Royal Festival Hall shop.

Download or stream online via iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and others.

Recent recording highlights

Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 6 & 14 with Vladimir Jurowski LPO-0080

Richard Strauss’s Don Juan/Ein Heldenleben with Bernard Haitink LPO-0079

Organ works by Poulenc & Saint-Saëns with Yannick Nézet-Séguin LPO-0081

‘What a scintillating account it is with Jurowski and the LPO using the live concert adrenalin to bring thrilling edge and excitement to the sound … No wonder the LPO has just extended Jurowski’s contract with them.’

BBC Radio 3 CD Review, October 2014

‘In both works the LPO is on very fine form indeed … Admirers of this greatly distinguished conductor should not hesitate.’

Music Web International, August 2014

‘The Poulenc concerto is delivered here with a bright spikiness that took my breath away … Goodness, this is an edgy, exciting performance; … The depth and range of colour picked up by this fine recording is simply marvellous.’

Music Web International, November 2014

‘This is by far the most stunning Shostakovich disc I have heard this year.’

Recording of the Month, BBC Music Magazine, 50 November 2014

‘The orchestra sounds wonderful here [Don Juan], and the performance sweeps one along.’

International Record Review, November 2014

‘It's a belter of a piece, and one which deserves space on the CD shelves of the most ardent organophobe. And this among the best modern recordings.’

The Arts Desk, November 2014

Supporting the London Philharmonic Orchestra lpo.org.uk/support 020 7840 4225

Supporting the Orchestra

Play your part The price of each ticket cannot cover the costs of putting on a concert, let alone our education workshops, tours and recordings. Our donors and partners help us to achieve the extraordinary.

Play your part by supporting us today and discover everything the London Philharmonic Orchestra has to offer.

Registered charity 238045

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Supporting the Orchestra 52

Friends

Benefactors

Thomas Beecham Group

Contemporaries

Legacies

Join as a Friend to hear first about upcoming events, attend rehearsals and meet the players.

Support the Orchestra you love at Royal Festival Hall and beyond.

Get to know the Orchestra and those that bring our world-class performances to life through access to Glyndebourne, the Beecham Bar and special events attended by your favourite players.

Whether you would like to endow a musician’s chair or instrument close to your heart, or make an invaluable contribution to our education programme, Thomas Beecham Group supporters gain unparalleled access to the Orchestra through major supporting gifts.

Unmissable concerts, parties, events and cocktails for young professionals who love the arts and music.

Make a lasting contribution to our future, ensuring that we can continue to inspire thousands of people, young and old, with the power of music.

From £50

From £500

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These pages offer just a taste of how you can get involved.

For more information on how to support the Orchestra as an individual, contact our team. lpo.org.uk/support/individuals

Supporting the Orchestra

Contact us

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Supporting the Orchestra

Corporate Partnerships Make a sound business decision.

Engage your stakeholders with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

A partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra offers a host of benefits and opportunities to your company. As well as a powerful international brand we are also a registered charity making your investment a socially responsible decision. From corporate entertainment packages around our concerts to national and even international partnership opportunities, we work with our Corporate Partners to create bespoke relationships that fit each company’s needs.

Never miss an opportunity Our year-round programme of concerts and events means there are plenty of occasions to engage your stakeholders.

Looking for something a bit different?

Our creative employee training will bring imagination, challenge and enjoyment to your workplace.

Meet your CSR objectives Through our education programmes, which reach over 30,000 people each year.

Make your events unforgettable Corporate Partnership allows access to our world-class musicians who can entertain your guests with exclusive private performances.

Align with one of the world’s best known Orchestras Leverage our brand values of world excellence, creativity and invention.

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lpo.org.uk/corporate

Join us on Facebook

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Keep up to date with LPO concerts, events, recordings and news.

Listen Again – free online concerts

We want to share our live music making with as many people as possible, and will upload at least six live classical concert recordings each season for you to listen to, for free, wherever you are in the world.

Bavouzet was flipping amazing at prok 3 pno conc. Great to see jurowski introduce pieces too, what a charmer! @LPOrchestra Sept 2014

Thank you for a lovely concert.

The performance of Tchaikovsky’s symphony was superb!

Oct 2014

When I was 15 Shostakovich was my favourite composer. Great to be reminded by @LPOrchestra tonight that he still is.

Sept 2014

It was a fantastic concert tonight.

Concierto de Aranjuez was breathtaking and achingly beautiful, the Mozart was stunning and the Tchaikovsky was incredibly powerful. Thank you, and please return soon! :)) Apr 2014

Incredible stuff from @LPOrchestra and Vladimir last night! Great Rachmaninoff cycle ahead. The Isle of the Dead chilled me to the core!

Oct 2014

social media

Stay Tuned — Get up-to-the-minute news, reviews, competitions and special offers — Glimpse behind the scenes of a world class orchestra — Chat and interact with players, staff and other audience members — Access regular online concert streaming for free — Learn more about the music through podcasts, online programme notes and soundclips

Wonderful evening. Did not want it to end.

Sept 2014

I don’t know much about classical music but I do know when I am listening to something amazing> Pavel Kolesnikov’s debut with @LPOrchestra Oct 2014

I came! Absolutely fantastic performance you guys!!! I have seen many of your performances but yesterday’s was something else!

Sept 2014

First time at Royal Festival Hall. Amazing venue, fab orchestra @LPOrchestra & breathtaking concert (Mahler Symp 2) Nov 2014

Happy Birthday! Keep enthralling us like u always do!

Oct 2014

@LPOrchestra just unleashed a totes amazeballs Mahler 2! Melded lyrical delicacy, forensic detail and explosive power.

Nov 2014 @LPOrchestra @igudesmanandjoo I basically never want to listen to any other music ever again …

Sept 2014

Visit us at lpo.org.uk

Get to know more about the music, the players and guest performers through our website, podcasts, videos and online playlists, and sign up to hear about our latest recordings.

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Seating information

Evening concerts

Ticket prices

Ticket prices

23 April 2016 Shakespeare Anniversary Gala concert

£9 £16 £27 £39

£12 £21 £33

£12 £21 £33 £48

Premium seats £65*

£16 £27 £39

Premium seats £75*

* We have selected the very best seats in the front stalls to be sold at premium price to ensure you the finest acoustic and view.

Royal Festival Hall Balcony

Boxes

Boxes Rear stalls

Front stalls

Side stalls

Side stalls

Choir seats

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© Benjamin Ealovega

Performance area

Ticket Office 020 7840 4242

Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm (£2.75 transaction fee)

lpo.org.uk

(£1.75 transaction fee)

Southbank Centre

Book more, pay less: series discounts — Book 3 – 4 concerts and receive a 10% discount — Book 5 – 7 concerts and receive a 15% discount — Book 8 – 10 concerts and receive a 20% discount — Book 11 – 14 concerts and receive a 25% discount — Book 15 + concerts and receive a 30% discount

Ticket Office 0844 847 9920

Group bookings

southbankcentre.co.uk

With savings of up to 20% on ticket prices, and many other group benefits, everything has been done to help your group have an enjoyable evening with one of the world’s finest orchestras.

Daily 9.00am – 8.00pm (£2.75 transaction fee) (£1.75 transaction fee) All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls.

In person at Royal Festival Hall Ticket Office Daily 10.00am – 8.00pm (no transaction fee)

All discounts are subject to availability and cannot be combined.

Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium.

For details of our privacy policy, please visit lpo.org.uk or call to request details.

Booking information

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Benefits include: — 20% discount for groups of ten or more — A pair of complimentary tickets for the group organiser for groups of 20+ — Exclusive ticket offers and special promotions on selected concerts — Flexible reservations until one month before the concert — No booking fee or postal charge — Customised free publicity material for your group.

Book now 020 7840 4205, lpo.org.uk/groups or groups@lpo.org.uk Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm

Student and Under-26 NOISE Schemes If you are a full-time student or under 26 you can get discounted tickets to selected London Philharmonic Orchestra concerts throughout the year. Students receive £4 best available tickets and under 26 year olds receive £8 best available tickets. Several concerts are also followed by a complimentary drinks reception courtesy of the Orchestra’s Principal Beer Sponsor, Heineken.

Sign up to one of the free e-bulletins at lpo.org.uk/noise to get details of these fantastic offers!

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General information

Can I exchange my tickets?

London Philharmonic Orchestra

You may exchange your tickets for another concert in the Orchestra’s 2015/16 season or exchange for a credit note.

We do not offer refunds unless a concert is cancelled. The right is reserved to substitute artists and vary programmes if necessary, and to adjust ticket price allocations according to demand.

Resident at Southbank Centre and Glyndebourne Festival Opera 89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP

Limited concessions 50% off all ticket prices for full-time students, benefit recipients (Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support, and Pension Credit) and under-16s (maximum 4 per transaction. Not applicable to Family Concerts). Limited availability; appropriate ID will be checked on admission.

Access Visitors with a disability can join Southbank Centre’s free Access Scheme. You may be eligible for tickets at concessionary prices and to bring a companion who can assist you during your visit; and to receive information in alternative formats. For information, please email accesslist@southbankcentre.co.uk, call 0844 847 9910 or visit southbankcentre.co.uk/access All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls.

The auditoria are fitted with Sennheiser infrared systems. Receivers can be collected from the Cloakroom on Level 1 of Royal Festival Hall.

Royal Festival Hall has level access via internal lifts and ramps, and accessible toilets. For further details please call 0844 847 9910.

Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium.

Guide and companion dogs may be taken anywhere on site.

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Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director HRH The Duke of Kent KG Patron Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor* Andrés Orozco-Estrada Principal Guest Conductor Pieter Schoeman Leader† Magnus Lindberg Composer in Residence T 020 7840 4200 F 020 7840 4201 Tickets 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk *Supported by the Tsukanov Family Foundation †Supported by Neil Westreich

Getting to Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is situated on the Thames Riverside between the Golden Jubilee Bridge and Waterloo Bridge.

By underground to Waterloo, Embankment and Charing Cross By rail to Waterloo, Waterloo East or Charing Cross By bus to Waterloo (stopping on Waterloo Bridge, York Road, Stamford Street and Belvedere Road). For detailed bus information call 0343 222 1234 or visit tfl.gov.uk/buses

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Please note, from September 2015 the Hayward Gallery Car Park will be closed as a result of the Festival Wing: Essential Repair And Maintenance Project. There will also be periods where the Hungerford Bridge Car Park will not be in service as a car park due to on-site festival activity. During these times when no car parks are available on site, a drop-off area will be provided for our customers with special access requirements. Please phone 0844 847 9910 for further information.

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Travel information

Southbank Centre Belvedere Road London SE1 8XX

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FESTIVAL RIVERSIDE

ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL SOUTHBANK CENTRE SQUARE

RIVERSIDE TERRACE FESTIVAL PIER SOUTHBANK CENTRE CAR PARK THE HAYWARD

THE HAYWARD

QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL

ARTISTS’ ENTRANCE

WAT ERLO

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BFI SOUTHBANK

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Diary

The 2015/16 season

September

October

November

December

All concerts are at Royal Festival Hall and start at 7.30pm unless otherwise stated.

Wednesday 23 September Mahler

Saturday 3 October Oliver Knussen Sibelius Scriabin

Wednesday 4 November Beethoven Mahler

Friday 4 December Puccini Rota Respighi

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Saturday 26 September Taneyev Tchaikovsky Sibelius Vladimir Jurowski conductor London Philharmonic Choir

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Leonidas Kavakos violin Wednesday 14 October Krzysztof Penderecki Shostakovich Krzysztof Penderecki conductor Xavier de Maistre harp Friday 23 October Bizet Ravel Saint-Saëns Thierry Fischer conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano Catherine Edwards organ Wednesday 28 October Beethoven Thomas Larcher Stravinsky Markus Stenz conductor Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin Saturday 31 October Bruckner Stanisław Skrowaczewski conductor

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Paul Lewis piano Friday 6 November Castro Federico Ibarra Various Bernstein Revueltas Arturo Márquez Alondra de la Parra conductor Javier Camarena tenor Wednesday 11 November Fauré Magnus Lindberg Ravel Debussy Robin Ticciati conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin Wednesday 25 November Dvorˇák Mahler Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Johannes Moser cello Friday 27 November Liadov Prokofiev Sibelius Susanna Mälkki conductor Beatrice Rana piano

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Enrique Mazzola conductor Maria Luigia Borsi soprano Thiago Arancam tenor Vittorio Vitelli baritone Wednesday 9 December Wagenaar Magnus Lindberg Beethoven Jaap van Zweden conductor Frank Peter Zimmermann violin

February

March

April

Saturday 23 January Mozart Magnus Lindberg R Strauss

Wednesday 3 February Brahms Dvorˇák

Saturday 5 March Tchaikovsky Zemlinsky Szymanowski

Saturday 9 April Marc-André Dalbavie Brahms

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Soile Isokoski soprano Wednesday 27 January Schnittke Shostakovich Bruckner Vladimir Jurowski conductor Natalia Gutman cello Saturday 30 January Beethoven Alexander Raskatov Vladimir Jurowski conductor Elena Vassilieva soprano Iestyn Davies countertenor Toby Spence tenor Nikolay Didenko bass

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lisa Batiashvili violin Maximilian Hornung cello Friday 5 February Gershwin Rachmaninoff Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano Wednesday 10 February Dvorˇák Sibelius Osmo Vänskä conductor Stephen Hough piano Lilli Paasikivi mezzo soprano Friday 12 February Nicolai Korngold Elgar Osmo Vänskä conductor Hyeyoon Park violin Wednesday 24 February Tchaikovsky Vasily Petrenko conductor Augustin Hadelich violin Friday 26 February R Strauss Khachaturian Stravinsky Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Kristóf Baráti violin

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Elz˙bieta Szmytka soprano Anne Sofie von Otter mezzo soprano Andrzej Dobber baritone London Philharmonic Choir Wednesday 9 March Rachmaninoff Zemlinsky Vladimir Jurowski conductor Marc-André Hamelin piano

Christoph Eschenbach conductor Sarah Tynan soprano Matthias Goerne baritone London Philharmonic Choir Friday 15 April De Falla Castelnuovo-Tedesco Prokofiev

FUNharmonics

Diary

January

(recommended for ages 6–11) Sunday 8 November 12.00 noon – 1.00pm Pirates!

Saturday 20 February 12.00 noon – 1.00pm A Roald Dahl Celebration Sunday 5 June 12.00 noon – 1.00pm Bottom’s Dream

Jaime Martín conductor Miloš Karadaglic´ guitar

Friday 18 March Rachmaninoff Brief Encounter (film with live orchestra)

Wednesday 20 April Honegger Saint-Saëns Dukas Debussy

David Charles Abell conductor Jayson Gillham piano

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Javier Perianes piano Saturday 23 April Shakespeare400 Gala Concert Vladimir Jurowski conductor Simon Callow director Kate Royal soprano Allison Bell soprano Iestyn Davies countertenor Ronald Samm tenor Simon Keenlyside baritone Saturday 30 April Rachmaninoff R Strauss Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alexey Zuev piano

The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Arts Council England and Southbank Centre.

Concert texts Andrew Mellor Photography Benjamin Ealovega Design Ross Shaw @ JMG Studio Printer Tradewinds (This brochure is produced on paper from a sustainable source).

Information in this brochure was correct at the time of going to press. The right is reserved to substitute artists and to vary programmes if necessary.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity No. 238045. Southbank Centre is a registered charity No. 298909.

Front cover: Ilyoung Chae First Violin Back cover: Stewart McIlwham Principal Piccolo

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