BBC Symphony Orchestra
Associate Orchestra
The backbone of the BBC Proms and one of the UK's finest orchestras, the BBC SO performs a thrilling, distinctive range of music, from works at the heart of classical music to contemporary premieres.
Events
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Bignamini: Fantastic Symphony
Severed heads, demonic orgies and obsessive love. Jader Bignamini pairs Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with the equally colourful imaginations of Poulenc and Camile Pépin.
Kate Atkinson and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
The author of Life After Life, Case Histories and Behind the Scenes at the Museum, joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra to read from her own work, and share the music that has moved and inspired her.
BBC SO Total Immersion: Italian Radicals
Miniatures by Berio and Maderna, introduced and performed live by virtuoso instrumentalists and singers from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
BBC SO Total Immersion: Sinfonia... and more
Martyn Brabbins, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers launch an evening-long odyssey through the music of Dallapiccola, Maderna, Nono and Berio.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Brabbins: Old Pictures, New Worlds
Martyn Brabbins takes the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on an adventure that spans oceans – from a majestic choral masterwork from 19th century Brazil to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Rakitina: Rachmaninov's Rhapsody
Three composers, three dramatic meditations on Fate and the Day of Judgement. Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony maps a journey from darkness to light, reflecting the crisis of his collapsed marriage.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo: A Sea Symphony
Full sail for new shores: Sakari Oramo conducts Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, Britten’s Double Concerto and an enchanting, newly uncovered late work by Oliver Knussen.
BBC Singers Centenary Concert
Join the BBC Singers as they celebrate their 100th birthday and look forward to the future with a host of artists and guests.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sousa
Channel waves, folk rhythms and the heartbeat of the cosmos, as conductor Dinis Souza, pianist Bertrand Chamayou and the BBC Symphony Orchestra play Debussy, Bartók and Unsuk Chin.
Gerstein plays Busoni’s Piano Concerto
Expect epic visions and piano playing that’s out of this world when Kirill Gerstein and Sakari Oramo champion Ferruccio Busoni’s stupendous Piano Concerto, as well as music by Grazyna Bacewicz.
Glowing Colours and Grand Passions
Glowing colours and grand passions: Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra join violinist Ilya Gringolts in Szymanowski’s gorgeous concerto – plus music by Wagner, Strauss and Dora Pejačević.
Haydn and Strauss: Nelson Mass and A Hero’s Life
Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Haydn’s Nelson Mass and pure sonic wonder from Samy Moussa. Hannu Lintu conducts a concert of outsize emotions and truly spectacular sounds.
Yeol Eum Son plays Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto
Respighi’s Roman spectacular and a new American classic frame Prokofiev’s most thrilling piano concerto in this BBC Symphony Orchestra debut for conductor Jonathon Hayward and pianist Yeol Eum Son.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Davis conducts Berlioz
Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Chorus rediscover the tenderness and wonder of Berlioz’s magical Christmas cantata, L’enfance du Christ.
Clemens Schuldt conducts Beethoven
Clemens Schuldt conducts Raymond Yiu’s powerful new violin concerto, framed by explosions of colour and joy from Kodály and Beethoven.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/MacMillan: Let There Be Light
Let there be light! The UK premiere of James MacMillan’s Fiat Lux, conducted by the composer himself.
Oramo conducts Brahms
Still waters run deep: Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Chorus perform Brahms’s German Requiem, plus two emotionally charged rediscoveries from postwar Finland.
BBC SO Total Immersion: Missy Mazzoli's Song from the Uproar
The UK premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s opera Song from the Uproar, the story of a woman who redefined the possible, performed by mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, the BBC Singers and musicians from the BBC SO.
BBC SO Total Immersion: Missy Mazzoli – New worlds
For Missy Mazzoli, small ensembles unlock infinite possibilities, and her music for ensemble and electronics finds her exploring the wildest reaches of a boundless musical imagination.
BBC SO Total Immersion: Missy Mazzoli – Worlds in Us
Dalia Stasevska conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra as the composer introduces four of her most powerful (and personal) orchestral pieces.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Lintu: Fireworks and Fantasies
Alexander Malofeev plays Prokofiev, and Hannu Lintu conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in colourful showpieces by Adams and Stravinsky – plus a Bernard Rands world premiere.
Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony crowns an evening of music that speaks directly to the world around us, in the first London appearance by conductor Kahchun Wong.
Carter conducts Tchaikovsky
Night thoughts: from the magic of Helen Grime to the fantasy of Richard Strauss and the unchained emotion of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique symphony, conducted by a true rising star.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo & Vilde Frang: Northern Lights
Sakari Oramo joins star violinist Vilde Frang to bend time and play the unplayable – whether Andrew Norman’s American odyssey or Sibelius at his most passionate.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Heaven, Earth and the Human Heart
My soul doth magnify the Lord: Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the BBC SO and Chorus in music from four centuries that aims directly at the human heart.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Globe Skimmers and Nordic Winters
From the elemental grandeur of Sibelius to the miracle of a globe-skimming dragonfly, Sakari Oramo joins violinist Johan Dalene to explore new horizons and old.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Fantastic Voyages
Beethoven’s Eroica, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, and the adventures of the Argonauts: mezzo Jennifer Johnston joins Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and no emotion is off-limits.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Bychkov conducts Brahms
Two different centuries, and two very different – but equally heartfelt – fourth symphonies. Semyon Bychkov conducts music by Detlev Glanert and Johannes Brahms.
BBC Symphony Orchestra: The Faun and the Firebird
Fairytale colours, Ukrainian courage and a talking violin. Roderick Cox conducts Stravinsky and Debussy and Ilya Gringolts gives the world premiere of a violin concerto with a difference.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Afkham: Dark Visions, Milky Ways
Darkness meets light as Shostakovich’s shattering Tenth Symphony confronts music of ecstasy, beauty and soaring optimism by Olivier Messiaen and Outi Tarkiainen.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Wigglesworth: Rites Remade
Violence, delicacy and sounds to liberate the imagination: as Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Symphony Orchestra put Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at the centre of a century of sonic adventure.
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo: Mahler Symphony No 5
Grand passions and epic vistas: Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is the gateway into a lost world of central European music, as Sakari Oramo opens the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s new season.
Discover
Composer Focus – Episode 5: Jean Sibelius with Sakari Oramo
In the final episode, host Edward Seckerson is joined by BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Sakari Oramo to discuss his fellow countryman Jean Sibelius, and the themes of nature and Finnish national identity woven throughout his music.
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