Name: Classic FM Hall of Fame
Start: 2026-10-04T14:00:00
Location: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Domingo Hindoyan

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Existential unrest gives way to great hope and joy as Chief Conductor Domingo Hindoyan returns to conduct the epic Resurrection Symphony by Mahler, which was inspired by a hymn the composer heard at the funeral of a friend. Hindoyan has been praised for his powerful, emotionally charged, and precise interpretations of Mahler’s work and the mighty combined forces of the full Orchestra and Choir will capture the intense highs and lows of this symphony, which comes complete with a march of the dead, Gregorian chants and ethereal pastoral passages that revel in the extraordinary wonders of life.

Mahler Symphony No. 2: Resurrection

Dani Howard wrote a new work when she won the Classic FM composition prize for the radio station’s 25th birthday in 2017 and now, internationally acclaimed for her inviting and shimmering sound world, she presents another new work written especially to celebrate the Orchestra’s 25 year relationship with Classic FM. There'll be iconic music from John Williams, a burst of Beethoven, Márquez's popular Conga party piece, and we'll hear ancient and contemporary British minds collide. Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra draws on themes by Henry Purcell, and Vaughan Williams reimagines the most famous of English folksongs. Something for everyone!

Classic FM Hall of Fame

Ten years since the project’s debut at Edge Hill station, we revisit Steve Reich’s Different Trains with Bill Morrison’s film accompaniment. A partnership with Metal, and originally staged with support from Liverpool Biennial, Sound Intermedia, Southbank Centre and Culture Liverpool, the film poignantly depicts train journeys spanning America and continental Europe during the Second World War. Celebrating other works made in Liverpool, we hear a premiere from our tenth Rushworth Composition Prize winner Andrew Barney, and music by local composers Mark Simpson, Grace-Evangeline Mason and Nneka Cummins, whose work finding gills (when they try to drown you) won an Ivor Novello Award.

Different Trains: Made in Liverpool

Yoko Ono Lennon Centre

In the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s death, young firebrand conductor Adam Hickox returns with music by the great composer, drenched in rustic charm and nostalgia. A similar primal yearning drives Stravinsky’s revolutionary The Rite of Spring, and the world premiere of Gavin Higgins’ new Clarinet Concerto is given by Mark Simpson as his time as our Artist in Residence comes to a close. Raised in a ‘heart-shaped’ territory on the Welsh border, a woodland region with its own dialect, Higgins’ musical language is also unique, infused with spirituality and an affinity with nature.

The Rite of Spring

A programme of captivating music for oboe, bassoon and piano, featuring a sensational work by a young female composer with a “true melodic gift” and gems from different periods of French musical history. We’ll hear Lalliet’s gorgeous Terzetto, and a piece Poulenc dedicated to the great Manuel de Falla.

Trio Bel Canto

Dinis Sousa leads a voyage across the English Channel, celebrating four visionary French masters. In tribute to the wit and beauty of Couperin’s keyboard music, Thomas Adès adds layers of sparkling instrumental texture. Georgian superstar Mariam Batsashvili is the soloist in Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No.2, with its pretty cascading melodies and dramatic twists and turns. Debussy lulls us with washes of impressionistic orchestral colour that conjure the different states of the sea, from calm to storm, and Ravel’s Boléro reminds us of a legendary moment in Olympic figure skating history.

Boléro

Nobuyuki Tsujii returns with Shostakovich’s jocular and fun-loving Second Piano Concerto, and a similar playfulness runs through a brand-new piece by the sensational young composer Carmel Smickersgill. Her work blends pop and classical influences to explore themes of love, heartbreak and death – she describes it as ‘silly music that comes from a serious place’. Much darker forces emerge in Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain and dawn breaks to the sound of one of the Orchestra's mighty Forever Bells. Peace is finally restored thanks to Sibelius’ Sixth Symphony, a luminous, restrained work inspired by early English music.

Nobu Returns

Piano phenomenon Nobuyuki Tsujii has visited us here in Liverpool many times now – but with every performance, he just blows us away. In another electrifying recital here at the Hall, he’ll deliver a programme that showcases the very best of his technical mastery and virtuosic warmth – bringing us timeless masterpieces by Beethoven, the captivating lyricism of Grieg and pure magic in beloved music from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

Nobuyuki Tsujii Piano Recital

Beethoven was the first composer to write duos for clarinet and bassoon, and as the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death approaches, the Orchestra’s Emma Burgess and Gareth Twigg perform one of these groundbreaking works. From there we explore how the partnership between these two instruments developed, hearing the lush melodies of Glinka, Poulenc’s quirky Sonata for clarinet and bassoon, and music by Poulenc’s great friend, Benjamin Britten.

Emma Burgess, Gareth Twigg and Benjamin Powell

Women take centre stage in a celebration of their leading role in art and life. Princess Melisande, the jewel of Byzantium, arrives on the Provençal coast in Nikolai Tcherepnin’s dreamlike overture for Rostand’s play La Princesse lointaine. A canny and enchanting queen captivates her brutal Sultan husband for 1001 nights in Rimsky-Korsakov’s vivid retelling of the ancient tale, Scheherazade. And rising star soprano Sarah Brady makes her debut with the Orchestra in Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Written at the end of his career, this sublime, autumnal orchestral song cycle is Strauss’ farewell to life, love and music.

Four Last Songs

Belgian maestro Karel Deseure presents a feast of French talent as Mel Bonis – a favourite of Saint-Saëns – lends her lyrical musical voice to three female figures of historical, mythical and biblical legend. 20th-century pioneer Lili Boulanger also revels in the richness of religious texts, drawing on the pain and yearning in Psalm 130 to create her choral masterpiece. Songs of mourning give way to hymns of praise in a radiant performance of ‘Du fond de l'abîme’ by the Orchestra and Choir. And finally, that famous Persian queen returns in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.

Scheherazade

Nature, childhood and lullabies weave through this concert, which puts the spotlight on Benjamin Britten to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, and showcases our Composer in Focus Caroline Shaw and Timothy Jackson too. Britten composed themes for his Simple Symphony between the ages of just nine and twelve, while A Charm of Lullabies reimagines texts by Blake and Burns, and explores the hidden dangers of the night and the anxieties of parenthood. Timothy Jackson’s Be not Afeard offers a gentle hymn of comfort, and two works by Pulitzer and Grammy Award-winning composer Caroline Shaw, whose music features throughout our season, offer a psychedelic take on fairytales and the natural world.