BBC Philharmonic Autumn Season 2023
Johnny James, Managing Editor
An outstanding orchestra live in a world-class concert hall – the BBC Philharmonic is pulling out the stops for its Autumn Season at The Bridgewater Hall. Now well underway, the programme features an eclectic range of concerts, including popular classics, an atmospheric evening of Scandinavian music, two UK premieres of BBC commissions and Six Songs by Alma Mahler-Werfel, recently performed to a packed Royal Albert Hall at this year’s BBC Proms.
Kicking off the season on 30 September, the BBC Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor John Storgårds was joined by mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly for six picturesque and expressively orchestrated songs by Alma Mahler, alongside Janáček’s gargantuan Sinfonietta and Tchaikovsky’s darkly tinged Sixth Symphony.
7 October saw Mark Wigglesworth take the baton, conducting a trio of popular classics: Beethoven’s Fifth, Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture and Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto performed by Sunwook Kim, who won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006, aged just 18.
Contemporary works began to emerge in the programming on 14 October, with Eva Ollikainen conducting the orchestra in Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s primordial ARCHORA, which received its world premiere with the BBC Philharmonic at the 2022 BBC Proms. Pianist Richard Goode also performed Mozart’s imaginative Piano Concerto No. 8, alongside works by Debussy and Haydn.
As the winter nights approach on 28 October, John Storgårds delivers a Scandinavian programme filled with spirits and mystic realms. Sibelius’ symphonic poem Pohjola’s Daughter and Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Seventh Symphony bookend Sofia Gubaidulina’s In Tempus Praesens for violin and orchestra, featuring a guest performance by acclaimed German violinist Tobias Feldmann.
A programme of rich and emotional Romantic works will fill the concert hall on 4 November, with Kerem Hasan conducting the overture from Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 as well as orchestral songs by Strauss. The latter will be performed by soprano Francesca Chiejina, who recently graduated from the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
John Storgårds takes the baton again on 25 November, for music by Copland and Nielsen, plus two UK premieres of BBC commissions. Pianist Alexandra Dariescu joins the orchestra for James Lee III’s Shades of Unbroken Dreams, which marks the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, while the orchestra’s Chief Conductor play-directs Sebastian Fagerlund’s Helena’s Song (from his Autumn Sonata) from the podium.
Rounding off the season on 2 December, earnest meets eccentric in a celebration of three classics conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. Tippett’s final orchestral work, The Rose Lake, begins the concert, ahead of a selection from Humperdinck’s melodious Hansel and Gretel. The night and the season culminates with Beethoven’s light hearted, whimsical Eighth, often referred to by the composer as ‘my little Symphony in F’.
Tickets for all concerts are now on sale and available via the ‘Book now’ button above.
