On Thursday 5 December, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed our legendary Christmas Celebration with John Rutter at the Royal Albert Hall. The matinee and evening concerts featured much-loved Christmas carols as well as seasonal classics from across the ages, performed by The Bach Choir, Taplow Girls’ Choir and tenor Nicky Spence, with BSL interpretation by Paul Whittaker and Stephen Heselton.
Our 2025 season Lights in the Dark at the Southbank Centre and Royal Albert Hall is dedicated to music written during turbulent times in history and despite composers' difficult personal circumstances, demonstrating how music can be a method for working through and reckoning with such experiences. We commissioned artist Shadric Toop to create a piece of art that incorporated many of the key elements and subjects of the music featured in the season - take a look at our breakdown of what each unique character, object and symbol represents below.
On Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 November Joe Hisaishi conducted his first concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London since being appointed as the Orchestra's Composer-in-Association earlier this year. For two nights in a row, a packed crowd at the Royal Albert Hall gave a thunderous welcome to the globally-renowned composer as he conducted a selection of his own music, with guest soprano Grace Davidson, as well as a performance of Britten's classic Four Sea Interludes.
One of the most significant contemporary composers of our time, Péter Eötvös, died in April this year. He left behind a vast body of work that included operas, film scores, chamber music and choral pieces. One of his last orchestral compositions was Cziffra Psodia, a piano concerto dedicated to the Hungarian pianist György Cziffra, which we’ll perform on Thursday 28 November at Cadogan Hall with pianist János Balázs and our Principal Associate Conductor Alexander Shelley.
