BBC Philharmonic 2018/19 Concert Season

Berlioz/Saariaho at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 26 October 2018, from £12.5 - Book now

One of modern music’s most daring and brilliant voices, Kaija Saariaho will be joining us in person for this concert featuring two of her compositions, both written in the last decade. The first half of the programme is dedicated to another superb orchestral colourist: Hector Berlioz.

Ravel | Elgar | Stravinsky at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 1 November 2018, from £12.5 - Book now

Two years after winning BBC Young Musician, Sheku Kanneh-Mason makes his Bridgewater Hall debut with perhaps the greatest cello concerto of all: Elgar’s reflection on the First World War, performed tonight to mark this month’s centenary of the Armistice. Also this evening, a wartime suite from Ravel and a thrilling ballet by Stravinsky.

Stephan/Walton/Howells/Shostakovich at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 16 November 2018, from £12.5 - Book now

To mark 100 years since the Armistice, the BBC Philharmonic reflects on war. Following a work by Rudi Stephan, who died on the Eastern Front, there’s Herbert Howells’s tribute to a fellow composer killed at war, Walton’s haunting Viola Concerto and Shostakovich’s Ninth, written as the Second World War drew to a close.

Rachmaninov/Holst at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 8 December 2018, from £12.5 - Book now

In the mountain range of piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s Third is the Everest – intense and immense, technically demanding and emotionally overpowering. Few pianists prove equal to the task – but, as his acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms last year made clear, Alexander Gavrylyuk is more than a match for it.

Vassily Sinaisky follows it with another work of great breadth and popularity: Holst’s rousing orchestral journey through our solar system, first performed in 1918.

Symphonic Cinema - Stravinsky/Ravel at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 19 January 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

The BBC Philharmonic, in association with The Bridgewater Hall, presents a very special event marrying sound with vision, bringing classic works by two of the 20th century’s greatest composers to vivid musical and cinematic life.

Stravinsky/Mozart/Tchaikovsky at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 26 January 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Born in Liverpool and a former pupil at Chetham’s School of Music, pianist Paul Lewis returns to the North-West for a performance of one of Mozart’s most elegant and expressive piano concertos. Also tonight, Ben Gernon conducts the BBC Philharmonic in a sparkling Stravinsky work and Tchaikovsky’s tempestuous, gripping Fourth Symphony.

Berlioz - Beatrice et Benedict at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 16 February 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

As merry as the day is long, Hector Berlioz’s captivating comic opera is one of the most joyful operatic translations of Shakespeare from page to stage. Béatrice et Bénédict slims down the plot of Much Ado About Nothing to focus on the will-they-won’t they romance between the title characters, whose attraction to each other is the living, breathing antithesis of love at first sight.

Schumann/Robin Holloway/Valentin Silvestrov at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 23 February 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

The BBC Philharmonic celebrates Robin Holloway’s 75th birthday with a brand new work by the treasured English composer, given its world premiere by guest soloist Håkan Hardenberger. Also tonight, a rare performance of Valentin Silvestrov’s transcendent Fifth Symphony, one of the best-kept secrets in contemporary music.

Stravinsky/Dvořák/Martinu at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 23 March 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Bohuslav Martinů and Igor Stravinsky both fled Europe during the Second World War – and tonight’s concert is centred on two works they composed in the USA: Stravinsky’s expressive ballet and Martinů’s inspiring Fourth Symphony. Dvořák’s Cello Concerto was also part-written in America, but it sings of the composer’s Bohemian homeland.

Thomas Adès | Prokofiev | Schubert at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 6 April 2019, from £17.5 - Book now

The final symphony completed by Franz Schubert before the composer’s death at just 31, the epic Ninth is ‘Great’ in both nickname and nature. Before it, Clemens Schuldt directs the brilliant Alina Pogostkina in Prokofiev’s riveting First violin concerto. Also this evening – a homage to French Baroque music from Thomas Adès.

Bax/Walton/Vaughan Williams at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 13 April 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

BBC Philharmonic favourite John Wilson returns to The Bridgewater Hall to celebrate our green and pleasant land with this all-English programme, taking in Vaughan Williams’s impassioned Fourth Symphony, Bax’s reflections on autumn and Walton’s iconic Violin Concerto – performed by acclaimed Canadian soloist James Ehnes.

Sibelius | Tippett | Stravinsky at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 25 April 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Steven Osborne made the definitive recording of Tippett’s masterpiece several years ago – and tonight, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, he joins the BBC Philharmonic to perform it live. Also on the programme, two symphonies by 20th-century pioneers: Sibelius’s brilliant Sixth, and a vital work written by Stravinsky ‘to the glory of God’.

James MacMillan/Britten/Tippett at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 2 May 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Either side of Sophie Bevan’s performance, conducted by English National Opera’s Music Director Martyn Brabbins, two epic fourth symphonies by great Britons, each a single movement: James MacMillan’s kaleidoscopic masterpiece, premiered at the 2015 BBC Proms to huge acclaim, and Michael Tippett’s punch-packing odyssey from birth through life to our inevitable end.

Elgar/Rachmaninov at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 18 May 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Edward Elgar was a violinist as well as a composer – and his soaring Violin Concerto opens this evening’s concert. Following Christian Tetzlaff’s performance of this towering work, John Storgårds conducts the BBC Philharmonic in Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony, a wonderful homage to his native Russia.

Mahler/Shostakovich at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 1 June 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

Dmitry Shostakovich lived much of his enigmatic life in the shadow of Stalinist Russia – and turbulence in his homeland led him to keep his magnificent, Mahlerian Fourth Symphony under wraps until Stalin’s death. Before it, conductor Mark Wigglesworth is joined by British baritone Roderick Williams for some of Mahler’s most romantic songs.

Mozart | Mark Simpson | Mahler at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, 15 June 2019, from £12.5 - Book now

A previous winner of both the BBC Young Musician and BBC Young Composer of the Year awards, Mark Simpson is both the soloist and composer of tonight’s world premiere – his Clarinet Concerto. Either side, leading British soprano Elizabeth Watts joins the BBC Philharmonic for three Mozart arias and Mahler’s majestic Fourth Symphony.