Manchester is about to be enchanted with a series of captivating concerts, showcasing the legendary Igor Stravinsky’s masterpieces and more. From family-friendly musical myths to the revolutionary 'Firebird' and the electrifying 'Petrushka,' The Bridgewater Hall is the place to be! Join the Hallé for an unforgettable journey through music and magic.

Magical Manchester: Dive into Stravinsky's World with The Hallé

Get ready, Manchester! This season, The Hallé and BBC Philharmonic bring you a spectacular series of concerts featuring the iconic works of Dmitri Shostakovich. From the soul-stirring 'The Gadfly Suite' at 'Top of the Classics', to the thought-provoking 'Ninth Symphony' in 'Rush Hour', and the reflective 'Cello Concerto No. 2' in 'A Hero’s Life', these events promise to leave you spellbound. Don't miss the monumental 'Symphony No. 5', which will be performed in two thrilling concerts. Join us at The Bridgewater Hall for an unforgettable musical journey.

Unveiling Shostakovich: A Series of Mesmerizing Concerts in Manchester

Experience the magical world of Richard Strauss in Manchester at The Bridgewater Hall this season. From the whimsical 'Mischief and Magic' to the reflective 'A Hero’s Life', and the awe-inspiring 'An Alpine Symphony', join us for a series of unforgettable performances featuring the BBC Philharmonic and The Hallé. Don't miss the unique blend of burlesque, orchestral grandeur, and moving stories of the human spirit.

Musical Magic and Heroic Tales: Richard Strauss in Manchester

Manchester is set to host a series of spectacular concerts celebrating the timeless works of Ludwig van Beethoven. Kicking off the festivities is 'The Planets' on September 21, 2024, with the BBC Philharmonic. The Hallé follows up with 'Top of the Classics' on September 28, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony on November 28 and December 1. The celebration continues into 2025 with 'Rush Hour: Beethoven’s Fifth' and 'Hallé Rush Hour - Beethoven's Fifth' on April 17, 'Summer Classics' on May 24, and culminating in 'Ode to Joy' on May 29. Join us for an extraordinary musical journey!

Celebrate Beethoven: Unforgettable Concerts in Manchester

This season, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall is the place to be for classical music enthusiasts. With a lineup featuring Brahms’s Symphony No.1 and No.3, Dvořák's Cello Concerto, and Brahms's Piano Concerto No.1 performed by Garrick Ohlsson, the performances promise to be an unforgettable journey through the emotional landscapes of Romantic music.

Johannes Brahms Takes Center Stage at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall

When the farmer and her daughter plant their last wrinkly seed, they don't have great expectations of a successful crop. But to their amazement, the seed grows into the most enormous turnip! It's so big that they need help from some passing animals to pull it up.

The Enormous Turnip at CarFest, Hampshire

Laverstoke Park Farm

For Brahms, composing music was a quest to balance head and heart. The composer’s final symphony is the most exquisite example of that mission, a piece as radiant as poetry and as perfect as a mathematical equation. In tonight’s Prom Brahms’s work of Apollonian perfection is balanced by the outpouring of joy that is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, plus a brand-new work by Sarah Gibson inspired by the hope, pain, fear and joy of new motherhood. Tobias Feldmann makes his Proms debut for this concert with the BBC Philharmonic under Anja Bihlmaier.

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Prom 26: Beethoven, Brahms and Sarah Gibson

Royal Albert Hall

Few composers captured life’s struggles as vividly as Tchaikovsky. ‘This is Fate,’ wrote the composer in 1877 as he grappled with the opening notes of his Symphony No. 4. ‘It hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles.’ By the symphony’s final pages, Tchaikovsky had wrested hope from despair. John Storgårds conducts his BBC Philharmonic in this full-blooded symphony, after the delicate, white luminosity of Hans Abrahamsen’s Horn Concerto and the brusque drama of Sibelius’s symphonic fantasia Pohjola’s Daughter, based on a tale from Finnish folk epic the Kalevala, in which the ancient bard Väinämöinen attempts to woo the beautiful Daughter of the North. The Prom opens with Schumann’s much-overlooked dramatic overture for his opera on the medieval legend of St Genevieve of Brabant, Genoveva.

Prom 25: Storgårds conducts Tchaikovsky’s Fourth

As their acclaimed Shostakovich recording series continues, the BBC Philharmonic and Chief Conductor John Storgårds bring one of the composer’s boldest symphonies to the Proms. The Fourth, a bleak and ferociously powerful work, was withdrawn before its planned premiere for fear of reprisal from Joseph Stalin, who had recently denounced Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Before the interval we hear Canadian composer Cassandra Miller’s new viola concerto, titled I cannot love without trembling and written for leading player Lawrence Power.

Prom 16: Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4

The composer and critic Virgil Thomson described Olivier Messiaen’s music as ‘convulsive, ecstatic, cataclysmic, terrifying and unreal’. All converge in the most vibrant and unignorable symphony of the 20th century: Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony. Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic perform a work that opens up the heavens even as it brings down the house, after the tantalising prospect of a world premiere by Anna Clyne. The Gorgeous Nothings, written specially for the Proms, is the composer’s response to the ‘spellbinding wordsmithery’ of American poet Emily Dickinson, scored for orchestra, amplified voices and real-time electronic processing.

Prom 15: Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony

Joshua Weilerstein conducts the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra this afternoon in a concert from MediaCityUK, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

Four Classical Symphonies with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

MediaCityUK

Mind-bending and transcendent, our season finale carries us off on a luxurious magic carpet of sounds, and some of the greatest showmen in music, with Richard Wagner. The mythical other worlds he created have inspired countless film scores and fantasy novels. Wagner’s orchestral songs are a rare chance to hear him in miniature. French composer Messiaen beams down a smile on a world of spiritual glory. It’s a place which vibrates with rainbow colours and mystery. The calm before the storm of Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony, music which does more than it says on the tin. Come and hear the BBC Philharmonic in glorious technicolour as we whip up dreams, passions, and devilish visions from Berlioz‘s intoxicating Romantic stupor. A thrilling end to our concert season.

Ending on a High

The Bridgewater Hall

Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) soloists on the International Artist Diploma course perform under the batons of RNCM student conductors with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. This afternoon will no doubt be a defining experience at the start of their already illustrious careers.

RNCM International Artist Diploma Finals

The Enormous Turnip at We Invented The Weekend

Quayside MediaCityUK

RNCM International Artist Diploma finals

Hear the strands of Huang Ruo’s new symphony grow and meet each other as you travel through the streets of the city – before a world premiere of the full score performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at Aviva Studios

City of Floating Sounds

Aviva Studios

The Enormous Turnip at Swinton Sounds

History can be unkind to composers. It was Alexander Glazunov’s misfortune to be remembered more as the (allegedly) inebriated conductor who ruined the premier of Rachmaninov’s first Symphony, rather than as a supremely gifted composer in his own right. His mentor Rimsky-Korsakov said of the young Glazunov that his ‘development progressed not by the day, but literally by the hour’. He went on to become a highly influential figure in Russian music with an impressive body of innovative and cosmopolitan orchestral works and a gift for glorious melodies.

Discovering Alexander Glazunov

Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

If you’re not familiar with the music of Glazunov, his concert waltzes are a wonderful place to start. This is the sort of music you can imagine a princess whirling round a packed ballroom to, and Glazunov’s Concert Waltz No.2, which we hear today, blushes with rosy-cheeked colour and romance. Glazunov composed it in 1894, a year after his Fourth Symphony. The 1890s marked the transition for Glazunov from national treasure to international success, and many of his most popular works date from this period. Symphony No.4 is "marvellous, noble and expressive" according to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who conducted the premiere. And no wonder it was so well received – Glazunov started young when it came to symphonies. He was 16 when he composed his very first, and even at that age, his maturity of expression was staggering.

Glazunov with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Three little pigs must build their own houses when they grow up and leave home, but which pig's house is strong enough to withstand the puff of the big, bad wolf?

The Three Little Pigs at Sounds from the Other

Walkden Town Centre

Ballet music. Certificate 18. Winter exhales. The Earth gasps into life. The Rite of Spring welcomes in the vernal equinox, Siberian-style. Full of barbaric rituals and savage dances, the orchestra is turned by Stravinsky into a collective of cave people. Come and find out why it caused a riot at its Paris premiere in 1913. Shostakovich’s celebration takes on the form of a procession with his Third Symphony, ‘The First of May’, in a series of riotous marches culminating in his own Ode to Joy-like chorus. Rousing, uplifting music for the people. And to complete our spring harvest, ravishing swathes of sound and colour, part English idyll, part Impressionist painting. Frank Bridge’s vision of spring unfurls in one of the most individual British tone poems of the 20th century. The concert also celebrates the 100th birthday of the BBC Philharmonic’s former Chief Conductor, Sir Edward Downes, who had a special love of Russian music which is featured in this programme.

Spring, the Sweet Spring

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

A tale of two tenacious composers today with the BBC Philharmonic, as they’re joined by conductor Joshua Weilerstein and pianist Alim Beisembayev.

Triumph and tenacity with the BBC Philharmonic

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra welcome conductor Andrew Manze today for a programme featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ruth Gipps.

May merriment with Vaughan Williams and Ruth Gipps

All aboard for a fun-filled CBeebies musical ocean adventure for all the family! Take a deep breath and dive underwater in the concert hall submarine with its musical crew, the BBC Philharmonic. CBeebies friends JoJo & Gran Gran are on board with a Gran Gran plan, and Andy has his safari sub at the ready. Join the crew to search for endangered creatures, find out fascinating facts, and collect sounds and pictures for your very own musical ocean scrapbook. A magical multi-media event featuring CBeebies theme tunes, orchestral treats, live action film and animation with a few surprises along the way.

CBeebies: Ocean Adventure with the BBC Philharmonic

We return to Hanley with conductor/soloist Julian Rachlin for an evening of Mozart and Dvořák.

The BBC Philharmonic in Hanley

Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent

A slow musical procession leads us through the gate into one of Bruckner’s ‘cathedrals of sound’, his Fifth Symphony. This music is as spacious and reverential as a place of worship. Fear not, there are no hard pews to sit on here as Bruckner’s sound world is warm and enveloping. Sibelius also invites us into his world of Nordic impressionism with En Saga, based on Northern legends and myths. This symphonic poem evokes the rugged beauty and atmosphere of Finland with its sweeping vistas. Lotta Wennäkoski honours this in her own work Verdigris. Composers, she suggests, write new layers on music history, hence she immerses in Sibelius’s music in amidst her own, creating a patina, the blue-green verdigris of the title.

Nordic Noir

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is one of the most performed living composers in the world. Nominated for 11 Grammy awards and revered by Björk, P.J Harvey, and Radiohead as well as classical musicians around the world, his deceptively simple and spiritual music is loved by millions.

An afternoon of Arvo Pärt

With a heritage as rich as a Sachertorte, tonight’s concert gorges on the finest musical ingredients of Austria’s capital. Beethoven’s symphonies are cornerstones of the orchestral world – our very own sponge cake base! The Seventh Symphony is a feast of rhythm and dance, although Beethoven came from Spanish stock and maybe this just got the better of him when he cooked it up – expect more barnstorming than boleros. A hundred years on, the music of Berg stirred from the melting pot of 1900s Vienna. His Violin Concerto is, by turn, angelic and angst-ridden, one of the most innovative pieces ever written for the instrument. ‘Waltz King’ Johann Strauss II provides the icing on the cake with his Emperor Waltz, with a bonus trip down the river Danube, our dance through Vienna is complete.

Viennese Whirl

This afternoon we welcome Martyn Brabbins to Salford for a programme of five 20th-century works by British composers.

Twentieth Century Treasures

Fiesta season comes early with the welcome return of James Ehnes, one of the world’s finest violinists. At the heart of this programme is Saint-Saëns' impassioned Third Violin Concerto. It’s a classic, written for the virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, who wasn’t averse to writing the odd tune for his own instrument either. In Sarasate’s hands, the violin becomes Carmen, the exotic figure who beguiled toreadors and composers alike. Manuel de Falla keeps things smouldering with The Three-Cornered Hat. It’s a tale worthy of El Dorado (the lost golden city and the BBC soap), infused with Andalusian folk music and the dance rhythms of flamenco and the fandango. On the podium, Juanjo Mena returns to keep things in order in a programme with sun-kissed music by Ravel and Berlioz.

Tapas and Some French Bon Bons

Passion – from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer, bear, endure’. Through the eyes of St. John the Apostle, we relive the story of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Christ. We hear the witness accounts of Jesus, Peter, and Pontius Pilate, as well as the judgement of the baying crowd, all within an intensely dramatic orchestral setting. Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion is an extraordinary act of worship, the first of five passion settings which he wrote and one of only two which remain. His musical storytelling is breath-taking in its invention and unusually bold. Written for the Good Friday Vespers service of 1724 and 300 years later, almost to the day, Nicholas Kraemer recreates this drama at The Bridgewater Hall. A story that is radiant and sublime.

Bach's St John Passion

Both Elvis Presley and Stanley Kubrick were partial to a (Richard) Strauss sunrise, and his early morning wake-up call for Zarathustra gives us one of music’s most glorious openings ever. The rest of it isn’t half bad either. Strauss’s take on Nietzsche is philosophy “lite” but “full fat” on flair. Gregorian chant, mathematical puzzles and an uplifting Viennese waltz are all whizzed up in a blender to create one of the most sumptuous orchestral pieces ever written. We rewind to the delight of Mozart – the melodies in this symphony are as characterful as anything he wrote in his operas. And taking centre stage is Bruch’s First Violin Concerto – rich melodies, dazzling folk rhythms and a glorious slow movement are just some of the reasons why this Romantic giant repeatedly tops the Classical charts.

Rise and Shine

Join us in Carlisle at The Sands Centre with Ben Gernon and cellist István Várdai.

Elgar's Cello Concerto in Carlisle

The Sands Centre

Join us in Malvern with conductor Ben Gernon for an evening of Haydn, Beethoven and Elgar’s Cello Concerto with István Várdai.

Elgar's Cello Concerto in Malvern

Malvern Theatres

Beethoven wrote his Fifth Piano Concerto, ‘Emperor’ to the accompaniment of gunfire, as Napoleon and his troops were storming Vienna. You can hear the battle between soloist and orchestra – heroic stuff indeed and audiences had never heard anything like it in terms of scope and grandeur. But then, Beethoven liked shock tactics; they splatter his music. Later we move from the shocking to the sublime, as Beethoven’s slow movement is utterly timeless. Bruckner stops all the clocks with a sound world that’s mindful and mysterious. The skies open on the Seventh Symphony as shimmering strings transport us up the celestial ladders of Bruckner’s world.

Stairway to Heaven

Today’s programme begins with the overture to Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor, based on Shakespeare’s comedy of the same name. Masquerades and mischief-makers steal the show, duplicitous suitors fall foul of plotting friends, and a late-night wedding celebration rounds off the madness under a gleaming full moon.

An afternoon at the opera with the BBC Philharmonic

Controversy or conundrum? Or both? The centrepiece of this concert is Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. This music walks a tightrope between artistic integrity and political acceptance from Stalin. The piece wavers between despair and parody – heart-rending strings, bleak emotional landscapes, triumphant brass. Compliance or defiance? It’s up to you to decide. National pride bursts out of Smetana’s tone poem, Vltava. Bohemia’s great river gets a cinematic makeover as we travel from its source to the city of Prague, by way of his beloved Czech countryside (passing mermaids bathed in moonlight, a wedding party, and the St John Rapids on the way). Later, we visit the sound of pastoral America with the distinctive voice of Julia Perry, a cosmopolitan composer who fuses the classical style with the sounds of her African American heritage. Contralto Jess Dandy returns to perform one of Perry’s most cherished scores, her Stabat Mater.

A Response to Criticism?

Join the BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Wilson at MediaCityUK today for a celebration of springtime’s abundance. First on the programme is a selection of works from celebrated American composer Edward MacDowell, whose philanthropic vision became his great legacy. MacDowell was deeply inspired by the idyllic surroundings of his farm in rural New Hampshire, and he composed many of his best-loved works there, including To a Wild Rose, which we hear today. Towards the end of his life, MacDowell and his wife Marian founded the MacDowell Residency, an artistic retreat based at their home, and where they hoped that other creatives might benefit from the peace and tranquillity. The prestigious Residency continues to thrive more than a century after MacDowell’s death, with many internationally recognised artists amongst its Fellows. This afternoon, the BBC Philharmonic’s Principal Cellist Peter Dixon is soloist in MacDowell’s Romance for cello and orchestra, a gentle yet stirring work, suggestive of a woodland stroll in the light of the setting sun.

Spring Fire with the BBC Philharmonic

With over 100 to his name, it's little wonder that Haydn is known as the ‘Father of the Symphony'. With names like ‘Miracle’, ‘Surprise’ and ‘Drumroll’, his campaign storms to a century with this symphony, the ‘Military’. Here the symphony becomes a battlefield with sound effects to match. If Haydn injected the symphony with life, then Mozart strapped a rocket to its back. His ‘Jupiter’ Symphony was unparalleled in its invention and beauty giving us some of the ripest music of its age. Katherine Balch has been described as ‘some kind of musical Thomas Edison’ and her whisper concerto captures extraordinary sounds. This music was written especially for cellist Zlatomir Fung who joins the BBC Philharmonic for this UK premiere.

Sound and Fury

First, a call to arms. Composed during the Napoleonic Wars, revolution was spreading across Europe, and you can hear it in Beethoven’s Egmont overture with its growling basses, stormy strings, and heraldic brass. Injustice, heroism, and rebellion against oppression, are condensed into this minidrama of an overture. The might of Beethoven later inspired Bruckner, but his music takes us to a place of contemplation rather than controversy. His symphonies are written to the glory of God, with an architecture to match. John Storgårds has already taken his vision of Bruckner to Vienna and Berlin, and now Manchester, in the first of three instalments in this season. We also pay homage to the late Finnish composer Saariaho, widely regarded as one of the finest of recent years. In Leino Songs, filigree textures and bold colours are influenced by her birthplace Finland, and France, her adopted home. Her highly individual style is transcendental and lingers long in the memory.

Cathedral in Sound

Karen Gomyo, a sensational Japanese born violinist, makes her debut in Stoke-on-Trent Classic series in Victoria Hall in Hanley and will show exactly why in Tchaikovsky’s glorious Violin Concerto. The rest of the programme is high voltage with John Storgårds bringing his special virtuosity to Sibelius’s symphonic portrait of a nation awakening to freedom.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in Hanley

We step into Cinderella's enchanted world with Prokofiev, Chief Conductor John Storgårds takes us on a rollercoaster ride in Shostakovich's First Symphony and Christian Tetzlaff performs a violin concerto by Thomas Adès.

Paths to a Princess

Join the BBC Philharmonic and their Chief Conductor John Storgårds for an afternoon concert at MediaCityUK.

John Storgårds and Simone Lamsma with the BBC Philharmonic

This evening, the BBC Philharmonic is joined by students of the RNCM for a special side-by-side performance at MediaCityUK, with a programme focussing on composer Helen Grime’s work. The concert, which forms part of the RNCM’s In Focus series, features three pieces by Grime, interspersed with the work of talented RNCM composition students.

The BBC Philharmonic and RNCM Brand New Orchestra - Helen Grime In Focus

Martyn Brabbins conducts a gentle and refreshing programme of works from composers known for, and inspired by, the pastoral tradition.

Pastoral moods for a new year

BBC Radio Manchester invites you, your family and friends to join them as they record their annual Christmas Concert with the BBC Philharmonic, plus presenters and special guests.

BBC Philharmonic and BBC Radio Manchester's Christmas Concert, 2023

Dukinfield Town Hall

Robin Wallington unearths a handful of lesser-heard gems spanning the 19th and 20th century. Today, we’ll introduce you to a few composers you may not have heard of, but whose work you’ll soon be seeking out.

Tranquillity and Discovery with the BBC Philharmonic

Everyone knows the famous slow movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 featured in the film Elvira Madigan and Martin Roscoe will make the music ‘spring to life’. What better way to commence your Festive celebrations than to hear Prokofiev’s Cinderella Suite….without doubt one of his most popular and melodious compositions. Maestro Moritz Gnann opens the programme with Haydn’s superb Oxford Symphony.

Mozart’s Piano Masterpiece in Hanley

Join us as we spend an afternoon in the Classical period in the company of Mozart and Haydn, with conductor Moritz Gnann and pianist Martin Roscoe.

Mozart and Haydn with the BBC Philharmonic

Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, in his own words, expresses “the spirit of life or manifestations of life, that is: everything that moves, that wants to live … just life and motion…”. This incendiary work makes for a fitting conclusion to this programme, conducted by John Storgårds, which seeks to define the human spirit. Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, arising from conflict seeks to celebrate an unshakeable sense of optimism. These two pieces bookend two more introspective UK premieres, Michigan-born composer James Lee III’s Shades of Unbroken Dreams with pianist Alexandra Dariescu – a piano concerto marking the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech – and Helena’s Song arranged for violin and orchestra from Sebastian Fagerlund’s unnerving operatic family drama Autumn Sonata, performed tonight by our Chief Conductor play-directing from the podium.

The Spirit of Life

Join the BBC Philharmonic for an afternoon of sounds from the big screen, as we record an episode of BBC Radio 3’s Sound of Cinema at MediaCityUK. Today’s sparkling programme has a distinctly festive feel; wrap up warm to venture through snowy Narnia, take a ride on the Polar Express, and don’t forget the tissues as we hear music from It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

Sound of Cinema with the BBC Philharmonic

Join the BBC Philharmonic as they record an episode of Inside Classical at MediaCityUK.

Inside Classical with the BBC Philharmonic: Bruch and Dvořák

Join the BBC Philharmonic for an afternoon of Britten and Shostakovich with conductor Adam Hickox and Helen Charlston Mezzo Soprano.

An afternoon of Britten and Shostakovich with the BBC Philharmonic

Join the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Ben Gernon for an afternoon of music from Dutch-born British composer Gerard Schurmann, with pianist Xiayin Wang

An afternoon of Gerard Schurmann

Opening with the overture to Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, the work he claimed lifted him from a “mere concoctor of opera-texts” to a true poet, we then discover Strauss’s range in a curation of his orchestral songs with soprano Francesca Chiejina, from the exuberant motherly joy of ‘Muttertändelei’ (Mother-talk) to the nervous contemplation of ‘Ruhe, meine Seele!’ (Rest, my soul!). But even without words, we see Strauss’s impeccable knack for storytelling in the symphonic fantasy Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), a fantastical tale of motherhood and humanity. Contrasting with the narrative-driven works of these two great dramatists is Mozart’s ferociously fun Thirty-Fifth Symphony.

Wagner, Strauss and Mozart

We start amongst the shadowy landscapes of Northern Europe in Sibelius’s tone poem, Pohjola’s Daughter – its rich orchestration and charming cast of melodies depicting the troublesome pursuits of the great hero Väinämöinen as he attempts to win the trust of the fabled daughter of the North. Then, abandoning the mortal realm, a bewitchingly intense journey from one extreme to another in Gubaidulina’s ‘In Tempus Praesens’, a violin concerto which sees Tobias Feldmann deliver us from the murk of Hell to the heights of Heaven. Finally, brightness and bliss in Rautavaara’s Seventh Symphony, ‘Angel of Light’, an auroral tapestry of his childhood memories, prized for its deep spirituality.

An evening of Finnish wonder

Today we hear from two very different, but equally brilliant, Russian composers of the Romantic period born within 18 months of each other, with conductor Giuseppe Mengoli and cellist Anastasia Kobekina.

Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky

The unchained passion of Tchaikovsky’s sweeping Fifth is a story of passion, triumph and love told in melodies that you will never forget. Conductor, Anna Handler is a rising star in America and following Dvořák’s wonderful Carnival Overture she is joined by Steven Osborne to play Beethoven at his most operatic and most poetic in his Fourth Piano Concerto/

BBC Philharmonic Tchaikovsky’s Fifth in Hanley

Re-emerging after its hugely successful world premiere at the 2022 BBC Proms with Eva Ollikainen, Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ARCHORA portrays abstractions – musical spectra and clashing extremes drawn out through her focus on primordial energy and parallel realms. Its broad, gestural nature contradicts and complements the sweeping symphonic intricacies of Debussy’s La mer. Prefacing such powerfully dramatic pieces, a traditional bout of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang-driven drama in the overture to ‘L’isola disabitata’ (The Deserted Island) and a pre-emptive respite as Richard Goode treats us to one of Mozart’s most imaginative concertos, his Eighteenth.

BBC Philharmonic | 14 October | Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ARCHORA

Described by Elgar as “honest, healthy, humorous and strong, but not vulgar”, his jovial painting of Edwardian London kicks things off in Overture ‘Cockaigne (In London Town)’. Less rambunctious but no less exciting is Brahms’s welcome affront to the concerto genre, his Second Piano Concerto performed by Sunwook Kim and laden with intimately intertwined melodies and gripping motifs. No motif is however more famous than the iconic knocking of fate as we finish the night with Beethoven’s untameable Fifth Symphony, rife with drama and addictive musical themes.

Beethoven’s Fifth

Jess Gillam’s infectious enthusiasm and effortless virtuosity make her an irresistible force in performance. Tonight, she explores the darkly magical world of Anna Clyne’s Glasslands, three realms governed by the banshee of Irish folklore, mercurial and mesmerising by turns.

Jess Gillam and the BBC Philharmonic

Join us for our 2023-24 season launch as Chief Conductor John Storgårds sets the stage with Janáček’s gargantuan Sinfonietta.

Janáček and Tchaikovsky

The BBC Philharmonic perform a selection of music spanning the career of celebrated American composer Edward MacDowell, conducted by John Wilson and with pianist Xiayin Wang.

An afternoon of Edward MacDowell

“To compose music is to do something off the beaten track, even if you're a man. But if you're a woman composer it is considered very odd indeed." So said Welsh composer, Grace Williams, who followed in Morfydd Owen’s celebrated footsteps to show her detractors that musical talent is gender blind. Sadly, Williams’ work is still not given the attention it deserves, but today the BBC Philharmonic unearth a seldom-heard gem from a film score Williams composed in the late 1940s. The feature film, Blue Scar, depicts ordinary lives touched by the nationalisation of the coal mines and in her score for it, Williams conjures an atmosphere of melancholy beauty. In Blue Scar: Mountain Scene, we hear Williams’ gift for painterly observation, a talent which must have impressed her tutors at the Royal College of Music. It was here that she studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams in the 1920s, about a decade before Ruth Gipps attended.

Today, the BBC Philharmonic welcomes students from the RNCM’s Master of Music (MMus) and International Artist Diploma programmes.

BBC Philharmonic and friends: RNCM exams, Part 2

BBC Philharmonic and friends: RNCM exams, Part 1

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic return to the Proms for Rachmaninov’s First Symphony. Dame Sarah Connolly joins them for songs by Alma Mahler-Werfel and Dora Pejačević.

Prom 33: Rachmaninov, Mahler-Werfel and Pejačević

The BBC Philharmonic and Chief Conductor John Storgårds present Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 – a thrilling glimpse of a composer emerging from the shadow of Tchaikovsky and his fellow Romantics. Canadian violinist James Ehnes is the soloist in Walton’s fiercely direct Violin Concerto – a work full of song, dance and drama. The concert opens with a world premiere from heartily irreverent Irish composer Gerald Barry, focusing on Franz Kafka’s obsession with wearing earplugs to silence the noise around him. ‘In the music,’ Barry says, ‘you are Kafka, hearing the world’s sounds as he heard them. You are inside his head.’

Prom 26: Sibelius’s First Symphony

The BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor John Storgårds are joined today by Canadian violinist James Ehnes, who brings his virtuosity to William Walton’s Violin Concerto. Walton worked on the concerto in 1938 during a trip to Ravello, southern Italy, where he was bitten by a tarantula. He marked the unpleasant incident by incorporating a ‘tarantella’ (an Italian folk dance style) into the concerto, describing the results as "quite gaga, I may say, and of doubtful propriety.”

Pieces by Walton and Miller

Join the BBC Philharmonic for this special studio concert celebrating the music of British composer Rachel Portman, who became the first female composer to win an Academy Award, which she received for the score of Emma.

Sound of Cinema

Today we’re thrilled to be joined by Gergely Madaras who conducts a programme full of warmth and energy, from the BBC Philharmonic’s home at MediaCityUK.

The Joy of Dance

In the 50th-anniversary year of the Royal Northern College of Music, former student Sir Stephen Hough plays Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto – a work full of Romantic passion and ‘youthful freshness’, written while the composer was still a teenage student. Hough is joined onstage by the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic and conductor Mark Wigglesworth, who also perform Mahler’s First Symphony – complete with birdsong, fanfares, storms and a funeral march – and a new commission from rising-star composer and RNCM graduate Grace-Evangeline Mason.

Prom 6: Sir Stephen Hough plays Rachmaninov

South Korean star violinist Bomsori makes her Proms debut with Bruch’s much-loved First Violin Concerto – the ‘richest’ and ‘most seductive’ of all the concertos for the instrument, according to 19th-century virtuoso Joseph Joachim. The folk music that runs through Bruch’s concerto also pulses through Brahms’s lively Hungarian Dances and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra – a musical tour de force that takes listeners from ‘sternness’ to ‘life-assertion’. This season’s focus on the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor begins with the composer’s lyrical, Elgar-inspired Ballade. Anja Bihlmaier conducts the BBC Philharmonic in her Proms debut.

Prom 5: Bruch’s First Violin Concerto

New music inspired by the climate crisis. Lose yourself in a world premiere by John Luther Adams, played by pianist Ralph Van Raat alongside new commissions by Ailís Ní Ríain and Alissa Firsova, all performed by the BBC Philharmonic and conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni.

Manchester International Festival: Sonic Geography

CBeebies: Ocean Adventure with the BBC Philharmonic 2023

King George's Hall

Sheffield City Hall

Anja Bihlmaier returns to the theme of dance with Bernstein’s music from On the Town, its jazzy melodies accompanying sailors on leave in 1940s New York. The upbeat mood is continued with Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, a playful ode to the pleasures of waking up on a Spring morning. The energetic pace is sustained in Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade with its lush, sweeping romantic orchestration. The concert ends with the Hungarian folk music-inspired Dances of Galánta by Kodaly.

Manchester Classical - Dances of Galánta

The BBC Philharmonic return, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, beginning with Beethoven’s Overture for Egmont, encapsulating the story of the Dutch Count who defied a Spanish attack, securing freedom for his country. We then take a visit to Spain courtesy of Ravel in the frenzied dance rhythms of his Alborada del Gracioso. Our whirlwind tour then calls in on Japan in Takemitsu’s Towards the Sea II before returning again to Europe for Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, before our final piece by the African-American composer William Dawson where we return to ideas of freedom and salvation in the opening movement of his Negro Folk Symphony.

Manchester Classical - Freedom and Salvation

Anja Bihlmaier conducts three favourite Hungarian Dances by Brahms, brimming with memorable tunes and catchy rhythms. A further dash of spice is added to the mix with the colourful Concerto for Orchestra by Bartók, a perfectly paprika-infused showpiece for the players of the BBC Philharmonic.

Manchester Classical - Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra

Ben Glassberg closes the BBC Philharmonic’s 2022-23 Bridgewater Hall season with a dazzling programme of twentieth century treasures. Starting with a whisper from one of Britain’s lesser-known composers, Ethel Smyth’s Prelude to Act II, ‘On the Cliffs of Cornwall’ from The Wreckers precedes and predicts Britten’s revolutionary operas and is equally as tantalising as it is radiant. Britten’s bravura Piano Concerto, a welcome chance for Steven Osborne to show off his virtuosic flair in the glistening textures and quirky interplay between piano and orchestra. Lastly, an explosive showstopper in the Symphonic Dances – Rachmaninov’s love-letter to his homeland and his final work.

BBC Philharmonic | 17 June

Be swept up by a stirring trio of powerful orchestral works by Britten, Tchaikovsky and Aldeburgh Festival featured composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

BBC Philharmonic II at Aldeburgh Festival

Snape Maltings

For Aldeburgh Festival, the BBC Philharmonic and chief conductor John Storgårds join violinist Simone Lamsma alongside Festival featured artist Cassandra Miller with a programme including classic works by Britten and Sibelius.

BBC Philharmonic I at Aldeburgh Festival

A true musical pioneer, Arkansas-born Florence Price encountered numerous challenges throughout her career, including segregation and the threat of racial violence. She displayed extraordinary determination in getting her work published and performed, aided by just a handful of supporters and sympathetic American conductors, but her work fell into obscurity following her death in 1953. It’s only relatively recently been rediscovered and its importance acknowledged. This concert offers a timely opportunity to experience two of Price’s vibrant and imaginative works: her Piano Concerto in One Movement, premiered in Chicago in 1934, and her First Symphony*, first performed in 1933. Both display the melodic strength of Price’s best work, with the symphony characterised by colourful orchestration, with hints of fiddles and banjos adding some distinctive textures.

Discovering Florence Price

John Storgårds guides us through an evening of profound emotional contemplation. Opening the concert is Pärt’s De Profundis, Following this, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with Jennifer Pike before we end the night with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13.

BBC Philharmonic | 18 May

The BBC Philharmonic returns to Malvern with celebrated international violin soloist/conductor Rachel Podger in a programme of music from the second half of the eighteenth century.

The BBC Philharmonic with Rachel Podger

This afternoon, the BBC Philharmonic welcomes celebrated international violin soloist and director Rachel Podger for a programme of music from the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth Century gems with Rachel Podger

From mysterious mountains and lifeless steppes to lively seaside villages, Jamala invites the audience on a journey across the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea, shining a spotlight on a culture and language we know little about. QIRIM includes 14 ancient songs, each representing a part of Crimea.

Jamala presents QIRIM with the BBC Philharmonic

The BBC Philharmonic return to Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent with conductor Michael Seal for a programme featuring music from Bax, Butterworth, Elgar and Tippett. Violinist Simone Lamsma joins for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.

Victoria Hall | Hanley

Today, the BBC Philharmonic has invited its Composer in Association, Tom Coult, to curate a concert built around his own music and arrangements on the theme of mirrors. He’s invited soprano Anna Dennis with whom he’s collaborated on a number of projects in the past and conductor Andrew Gourlay to join him.

Tom Coult and the BBC Philharmonic

Today, the BBC Philharmonic welcomes final year students from the RNCM’s two-year Postgraduate Conducting programme. This is an unrivalled opportunity for them to conduct a professional broadcast orchestra as part of their final assessment.

RNCM Postgraduate Conducting exams

Conductor John Storgårds delves into the great legends mapped out in Sibelius’s mythological Lemminkäinen Suite, inspired by the nineteenth century epic Kalevala – one of the few works that can boast of sculpting Finnish national identity as much as Sibelius himself. Following this, Garrick Ohlsson leads us into a fifth legend - Rachmaninov’s fiendishly challenging Piano Concerto No. 3 known for being a daunting trial through which only a select few dare to test their mettle, this concerto is nevertheless a wondrous display of Late Romantic melody and colour.

BBC Philharmonic | 22 April

This afternoon, we’re delighted to welcome back to MediaCityUK the BBC Philharmonic’s Associate Artist, conductor Ludovic Morlot.

Jolivet, Messiaen and Mozart

Nicholas Collon joins us for an adventurous programme of scenic orchestral works featuring the world premiere by Composer-in-Association Tom Coult, Francesca Chiejina performs Seven Early Songs alongside a programme including Strauss' Alpine Symphony.

BBC Philharmonic | 1 April

Gustav Holst takes us on an epic interstellar journey across our solar system, exhilarating and mysterious. From Mars the Warrior to the Ice Giants of Uranus and Neptune, The Planets is a musical vision like no other.

The Planets

Tonight, burlesque comes to The Bridgewater Hall. Petrushka is a puppet brought to life in Igor Stravinsky’s electrifying ballet. Taking centre stage is Mardi Gras with all its carnival atmosphere; there are noisy revellers, curious circus acts and a magician who gives wooden dolls a soul – for just one night.

Mischief and Magic

Big tunes, grand vistas and deep feelings can only mean one thing – an evening in the company of some truly great Romantic composers. It’s high spirits to start, with Carl Maria von Weber’s curtain raiser to his opera Oberon. From the supernatural to the natural world, Weber shows his hand as a master of pure theatre.

BBC Philharmonic

Sep 21, 2024

The Planets

Oct 5, 2024

Mischief and Magic

Nov 2, 2024

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Garrick Ohlsson

Nov 16, 2024

A Hero’s Life

Nov 30, 2024

Cracking Elgar’s Enigma Code

Aug 23, 2024

The Enormous Turnip at CarFest, Hampshire

Aug 8, 2024

Prom 26: Beethoven, Brahms and Sarah Gibson

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