In 2024 the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed around the world as we brought orchestral music of all kinds to people from every walk of life.
We toured and sold out concert halls in the USA, China and Central Europe, and in the UK we performed up and down the country from Brighton to Reading and Hull. In our London venues we brought the roof down with pieces such as Verdi's Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall and Rachmaninov's The Bells at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall with our Music Director Vasily Petrenko in our flagship Icons Rediscovered series.
Our Community and Education team has done some varied and incredibly rewarding work the STROKESTRA® programme develops at home and abroad. They also delivered programmes such as our unique Relaxed Performances, for those who find traditional concert settings difficult, and the Lullaby Project, which helps parents in prisons write lullabies for their children to be recorded and performed.
In April we announced the internationally-renowned composer Joe Hisaishi as our Composer-in-Association, and performed packed concerts with him in Paris and London. We were also pleased to welcome Sarah Bardwell as our new Managing Director.
Thank you for being part of our journey.
January
We returned to the USA in January for a winter tour with our Music Director Vasily Petrenko, performing with guest soloists Isata Kanneh-Mason and Anne Akiko Meyers The Orchestra embarked on a week-long residency in Orange County, California, and teamed up with the Orange County Philharmonic Society, visiting schools and conducting community workshops with the RPO Resound team.
© Arts Outreach at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts
At the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara we performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.3 with Isata Kanneh-Mason before concluding with Rachmaninov's Symphony No.2
© Rebecca Rimmington
Other stops included Athens, Georgia, Kansas City, Iowa City, Virginia and North Carolina. With programmes featuring Clara Schumann's dramatic piano concerto, Mendelssohn’s lyrical The Hebrides, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s dazzling Scheherazade, it was definitely a tour to remember.
© Jonathan Ayling
February
On Thursday 8 February the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra continued its Icons Rediscovered series at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall with Music Director Vasily Petrenko, dedicated to the music of two icons of late Romanticism, Sir Edward Elgar and Sergei Rachmaninov. Elgar's wink-and-a-nod portrait of London, the Cockaigne Overture, was followed by Louise Alder's performance of Strauss' Brentano Lieder, and the evening concluded with Rachmaninov's Symphony No.2.
© Andy Paradise
In its Icons Rediscovered series, linking works by two late romantics – Sergei Rachmaninov and Edward Elgar – the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra showed its mettle. The orchestra’s game has been lifted to new levels by the arrival of Vasily Petrenko as music director. In Rachmaninov’s mighty Symphony No 2, the strings were precise and unanimous. Balance across every section of the orchestra was ideal. ★★★★ The Guardian
March
On Wednesday 13 March the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed Wagner's Grand Festival as part of our Icons Rediscovered series at the Royal Albert Hall, exploring the power of the human voice. Inspired by the original 8-concert festival that took place in the Royal Albert Hall in 1877, put on by the composer himself, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko, along with soloists Rebecca Nicholls, Peter Wedd and Derek Welton, performed some highlights from Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen.
© Frances Marshall
On Wednesday 27 March the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Icons Rediscovered series continued at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall with Music Director Vasily Petrenko, juxtaposing the music of two late-Romantic icons, Edward Elgar with Sergei Rachmaninov; the Russian's Piano Concerto's No.3 preceding the former's Symphony No.2.
© Frances Marshall
"To hear the RPO strings playing with such hushed poise, and not only in the tribute Elgar paints in the Larghetto to a recently departed sovereign, was an unalloyed delight. Heart-stoppingly still and beautiful moments where whispering violins are answered by an ache from the violas – this is what gives this work a singular depth."
Bachtrack ⭐⭐⭐⭐
April
On the weekend of 6-7 April we performed to more than 37,000 people at Paris' La Défense Arena with Joe Hisaishi, following our announcement of Joe as our Composer-in-Association on Thursday 4 April.
On Thursday 11 April the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra continued its Icons Rediscovered series at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall with Rachmaninov's 'The Bells' symphony, sung by the Philharmonia Chorus and soloists Mirjam Mesak, Pavel Petrov and Andrii Kymach, and also featured BSL artist Dr Paul Whittaker OBE. It was accompanied by Elgar's In the South (Alassio) and Mieczysław Weinberg's Cello Concerto, performed by soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
© Chris Christodoulou
On Tuesday 23 April we performed Verdi's Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall, sung by a 120 member-strong Philharmonia Chorus and soloists Miah Persson, Jennifer Johnston, David Junghoon Kim and Alexander Vinogradov, conducted by Music Director Vasily Petrenko.
© Chris Christodoulou
"The Dies Irae (aided by the largest great bass drum I have ever seen and extra trumpets above the stage) hit the mark." Seen & Heard International
May
On Friday 17 May we had the last performance with our Artist-in-Residence for 2023–24, cellist and Winner of the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition Zlatomir Fung. He joined us in the newly-refurbished Bristol Beacon with conductor Emilia Hoving for Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto.
June
On Sunday 9 June the Orchestra performed the final concert of Icons Rediscovered with Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Elgar's Falstaff. It capped off our exploration of the two late-Romantic composers who came from worlds apart, but both had an extraordinary gift for melody and a deeply-felt nostalgia for a world that was rapidly fading upon the coming of modernity.
© Frances Marshall
"[Malofeev's] delicacy, the golden tone, the soft-edge, the balance and the elegance – became immediately apparent when one heard this Rachmaninoff [sic]"
Seen & Heard International
We also celebrated 20 years of Cadogan Hall and our Residency there with three special concerts, including a special narrated version of Grieg's Peer Gynt with Actor Tama Matheson, Literary Chelsea with Adjoa Andoh and Dame Harriet Walter, and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with star soloist Bomsori Kim.
August
On Thursday 1 August, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made its annual appearance at the BBC Proms with a concert of Ives, Ravel, Debussy and Tchaikovsky, with Music Director Vasily Petrenko conducting and pianist Denis Kozhukhin.
(c) Andy Paradise
"All details came through with pinpoint precision in a score this venue doesn’t easily favour, and Petrenko kept tabs on Kozhukhin even in the final sprint" Art Desk ☆☆☆☆☆
(c) Andy Paradise
"Characterful, rhythmically complex woodwind and brass solos interplay with the playful piano lines... and the virtuosity of the orchestra’s key players is brought into shiny realisation." Ellen Wilkinson, The Upcoming ☆☆☆☆☆
The Orchestra also made its first visit to China since 2017, and its first with Music Director Vasily Petrenko. Performing concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Jiageng Changsha, Wuhan and Nanjing with our Principal Cello Richard Harwood and star violinist Ray Chen as soloists, we drew large audiences in each city, and made a significant impact and helped forge lasting relationships with performing arts organisations across China.
© Peter Graham
A performance at Cadillac Shanghai Concert Hall.
Composer Tan Dun was in the audience for our second Shanghai performance where our Principal Cello Richard Harwood performed the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Cello Concerto.
September
In September Sarah Bardwell took up the position of Managing Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She was previously the Executive Director of Britten Pears Arts, with previous experience at the Handel Hendrix House in London, the Royal Albert Hall and English National Opera.
"Through spending as much time as possible in all parts of the business it is clear that the approximately 40 members of the team that support the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra undertake all its activities, do so with an unparalleled passion and commitment."
On Wednesday 25 September we performed the first concert at the Royal Albert Hall of the 2024–25 season with American Classics, featuring music by Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin and John Williams under the baton of conductor Michael Seal. We were joined by vocalists Anna-Jane Casey and Tobias Turley, as well as pianist Eric Lu for Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
At the start of the second half there was a special guest appearance—not a person on stage, but one of the instruments! For John Williams' Olympic Fanfare, one of our trumpeters, Toby Street, played a trumpet that was used at the premiere of the piece in the 1984 L.A Olympics. We are very grateful to Lesley for donating the trumpet for this occasion.
October
On 15 October we had an unforgettable day at Thorpe Park as our Community and Education team, RPO Resound, together with twenty RPO musicians worked with ACS International Schools to bring exciting activities to 10,000 local young people at the theme park.
From having a go at conducting RPO musicians, to trying out instruments from all of the families of the orchestra, the school children had a blast exploring the world of orchestral music. Plus, there were spontaneous improvisatory performances around the park, which added a fun and unexpected twist to a day filled with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics).
© Richard Ion
© Holly Isherwood
October also saw the Orchestra go on a whistle-stop tour to central and southeastern Europe, stopping off in Wrocław, Budapest, Belgrade and Athens. Music Director Vasily Petrenko conducted performances with pianists Yunchan Lim and József Balog.
© Slawek Przerwa
© Sarah Bardwell
(c) Sali-Wyn Ryan
In October RPO Resound visited Orlando, Florida, as part of our partnership with the Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts to adapt STROKESTRA® for the Florida stroke community, working with the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra and running a pilot of the programme.
November
We arrived in Hull on Friday 1 November for our iconic Film Music Gala programme with conductor Stephen Bell.
© Duncan Wood
On Tuesday 5 November 2024, we enjoyed an evening filled with musical show tunes as Let’s Face the Music returned to the Royal Albert Hall for a night of musical theatre classics. The orchestra was joined by some of the West End's leading voices—Kerry Ellis, Kelly Mathieson, Jamie Muscato, and Jon Robyns—with conductor Richard Balcombe, and the evening was presented by Bonnie Langford, accompanied by BSL signer Angie Newman.
© Andy Paradise
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. 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.
© Tim Lutton/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
What a privilege to see a living legend conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — at the Royal Albert Hall, no less! Lucy and I’s first time there and we must’ve looked like goldfish to anyone watching us, just constantly gasping at Joe Hisaishi and his musicians. Wonderful! pic.twitter.com/tKndV0AzMj
— Jordan King (@JordanMBKing) November 23, 2024
December
On Thursday 5 December, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra began its Christmas Celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall with John Rutter. The two concerts featured much-loved Christmas carols, performed by The Bach Choir and Taplow Girls’ Choir, with BSL interpretation by Paul Whittaker and Stephen Heselton.
© Duncan Wood
Thank you for joining us on our journey in 2024. We hope you have a very happy New Year, and we'll see you again in 2025.