Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a captivating performance that showcases Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, Liszt's Totentanz - featuring pianist Alice Sara Ott - and a world premiere from Hannah Kendall.  
 
Sir Antonio Pappano's first concert as Chief Conductor Designate of the LSO is packed with emotional depth and technical mastery. The concert opens with the world premiere of Hannah Kendall's O Flower of Fire. Renowned pianist Alice Sara Ott joins the LSO for Liszt's technical showpiece, Totentanz, making light work of the breakneck glissandos. The concert concludes with Strauss' vivid tone poem, inspired by Nietzsche's philosophical book of the same name. A profoundly beautiful musical expression of the literary text, the opening bars are a memorable blast of trumpets and pounding timpani, made famous by Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Program:   
O Flower of Fire - Hannah Kendall (World Premiere)
Totentanz - Franz Liszt *
Also sprach Zarathustra - Richard Struass 

*Featuring Alice Sara Ott on piano

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a captivating performance that showcases Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, Liszt's Totentanz, and a world premiere from Hannah Kendall.

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Liszt & Strauss

London Symphony Orchestra's Associate Artist Barbara Hannigan conducts a thrilling program of Vivier, Ligeti, Strauss, Haydn, and Nono.  

This beautifully curated program creates a moving story of finding hope in the dark, beginning with Ligeti's short but haunting piece for strings and ending with Strauss' profound tone poem. Mezzo-Soprano Fleur Barron gives a dramatic performance of Vivier's musical meditation on human suffering interwoven with audio from Martin Luther King Jr.'s final speech and flashes of news from the Vietnam War. Hannigan briefly steps down from the conductor's podium to sing composer Luigi Nono's soaring tribute to an Algerian freedom fighter. 

Program:
Ligeti - Ramifications for String orch
Vivier - Wo bist du licht! *
Haydn - Symphony No. 26 (La Lamentatione)
Nono - Djamila Boupacha **
Strauss - Tod und Verklarung

*Mezzo-Soprano Fleur Barron 
** Soprano Barbara Hannigan 

London Symphony Orchestra's Associate Artist Barbara Hannigan conducts a thrilling program of Vivier, Ligeti, Strauss, Haydn, and Nono.

Barbara Hannigan conducts Ligeti & Strauss

Join the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor François-Xavier Roth for a perfectly balanced concert featuring Beethoven's most surprising symphony and Unsuk Chin's brilliantly disorienting Piano Concerto.

Beethoven wrote two light-hearted symphonies in challenging times. Beethoven composed his Second Symphony while struggling with his increasing deafness, and his Eighth coincides with a despairing letter to his ''immortal beloved'', a mystery woman with whom he had a tragic affair. Together these symphonies create the perfect backdrop for Chin's complex contemporary Piano Concerto. 

According to Roth, Beethoven's symphonies are the perfect partner for contemporary music ''because his symphonies are an amazing example of radical, modern music, that changed the basis of composing and of the role of music in our life. We can hear Beethoven’s music with different ears, in dialogue with contemporary music from our time.''  Thanks to the impressive talent of soloist Bertrand Chamayou, this musical dialogue takes shape as he dives deep into Chin’s oeuvre as part of an Artist Portrait series, which includes chamber music at LSO St Luke’s.

Program:
Beethoven-  Symphony No. 2
Unsuk Chin - Piano Concerto*
Beethoven - Symphony No. 8

*Bertrand Chamayou - Piano 

François-Xavier Roth leads an impactful concert featuring two Beethoven symphonies and Unsuk Chin's brilliantly disorienting Piano Concerto.

François-Xavier Roth conducts Unsuk Chin & Beethoven

From Richard Strauss’ sweeping self-portrait to the musical poetry of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sir Antonio Pappano conducts an evening of music that’s larger than life.

Richard Strauss never did anything by halves, and he wasn’t a man for false modesty either. Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is a grand, swashbuckling musical self-portrait or the composer as superhero, and it doesn’t hold back: there’s a battle, and even a love scene. Liszt and the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor are perhaps more restrained, but every bit as imaginative.

‘A conductor has to be theatrical,’ says Sir Antonio Pappano, and as a veteran of the opera house, the LSO’s future Chief Conductor is a master at bringing characters to life, and telling a story with music. From Liszt’s soaring idealism to Strauss’ supersized musical comedy, this is a concert that lets him do exactly that.

From Richard Strauss to the musical poetry of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sir Antonio Pappano conducts an evening of music that’s larger than life.

Pappano conducts Liszt & Strauss

LSO Associate Artist André J Thomas delivers an all-American programme of music never-before-heard in the UK, including Wynton Marsalis’ dramatic new Tuba Concerto and two rising-star composers in the US.

A narrator and an orchestra lead a meditation – based on the words of James Baldwin, one of the most influential social critics of the last century – asking us to see the world as it is, and to imagine how it could be. The lowest instrument of the orchestra becomes a star in its own concerto, performed by LSO Principal Tuba Ben Thomson. And one woman is at the centre of a musical story of injustice, courage and strength, tracing the experience of Black people in the US across the centuries. 

André J Thomas is one of the most inspiring forces in modern American music, and he has handpicked some of the biggest and most vital names in the US right now, from jazz icon Wynton Marsalis to young composers who use music to respond powerfully to conversations on race and justice.

LSO Associate Artist André J Thomas delivers an all-American programme including Wynton Marsalis’ dramatic new Tuba Concerto.

Andre Thomas conducts Marsalis and Carlos Simon

Edward Gardner conducts Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Brahms' Symphony No.1 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 

After seeing Fingal's Cave in the inner Hebrides of Scotland, Felix Mendelssohn was instantly inspired to write his brilliant concert overture. It's said that upon hearing the overture Brahms remarked, "I would gladly give all I have written, to have composed something like the Hebrides Overture."  It's the perfect pairing for Brahms' epic Symphony No.1. He spent over 14 years writing this emotional symphony, and the depth of his dedication shines through. 

Under the skillful baton of Conductor Edward Gardner, both pieces come alive with dramatic intensity. This program is a harmonious blend of romantic imagination and masterful composition. 

Program: 
Mendelssohn - Hebrides Overture 
Brahms - Symphony No.1 

This concert was filmed on 27 September 2023 at the Royal Festival Hall

Edward Gardner conducts Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Brahms' Symphony No.1 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Gardner conducts Mendelssohn & Brahms

Sir Simon Rattle kicks off the new LSO season with the best of British – from the sweeping landscapes of Elgar and Frank Bridge to the 21st-century sounds of Daniel Kidane. 

Enter Spring! Yes, we know it’s September, but British music has always made its own rules. Frank Bridge celebrates life and nature in glowing surges of sound. Elgar begins his epic Second Symphony on the crest of a wave – then watches as the clouds gather and the light begins to fade. And Daniel Kidane dances on the edge, in the latest utterly original creation from a composer as imaginative (and as dynamic) as 21st century London itself.

For many people Sir Simon Rattle is British classical music – and as the LSO’s Music Director, he makes a point of beginning each new season with a celebration of British music in all its diversity, past, present and (most importantly) future.

Sir Simon Rattle kicks off the new LSO season with the best of British – from Elgar and Frank Bridge to the sounds of Daniel Kidane.

Sir Simon Rattle Conducts Elgar

Watch the London Symphony Orchestra’s critically acclaimed performance of Janácek’s opera Katya Kabanova, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. 

Janácek’s tale of love and loneliness centers around the young Katya. Living in a remote country village with her boring husband and his snobbish family, she is desperate for love and an escape. Everything changes one stormy evening when a secret love enters her life, changing it forever.

Sir Simon Rattle hand-picked a star-studded cast of singers including tenor Simon O’Neill and, appearing in one of her signature roles as seen at the Royal Opera House, Amanda Majeski as Katya. This concert is bursting with energy, emotion, and a brilliant performance from the entire cast. It’s no wonder critics gave this performance countless five-star reviews.

Watch the London Symphony Orchestra’s critically acclaimed performance of Janáček’s opera Katya Kabanova, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Rattle conducts Katya Kabanova

Fate knocks at the door, and LSO Principal Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja seize the moment.

‘This is how Fate knocks at the door!’ declared Beethoven, but if those first electrifying notes are all you know of his Fifth Symphony, you’re in for a thrilling discovery. It’s the only possible way to follow the fabulous, fantastical music of György Ligeti – a composer who took the orchestra, turned it upside down, and crafted astonishing new sounds from what fell out.

In other words, it’s the music of a true original – perfect for a conductor like François-Xavier Roth, who hears every note as if it’s newly minted. And even more perfect for explorer, storyteller and one-woman musical phenomenon Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Not many violinists acquire a cult following but when you hear ‘PatKop’ play, you’ll understand why she’s the exception that proves the rule.

Concert Order:
Macabre Collage - György Ligeti arr Elgar Howarth
Violin Concerto - György  Ligeti  
Symphony No. 5 - Beethoven 

Fate knocks at the door, and LSO Principal Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja seize the moment.

François-Xavier Roth conducts Ligeti & Beethoven

London Symphony Orchestra Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas brings a lifetime’s insight and experience to Gustav Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony: a story of life, death and love beyond words. 

Alone in the darkness, a trumpet sounds, and Gustav Mahler begins his symphonic struggle from tragedy to triumph. Enter a world of midnight storms, joyous horn-calls, and possibly the most tender love-letter ever written without words: the heart-rending Adagietto. 

Michael Tilson Thomas has a relationship with the LSO that spans five decades – and which grows more rewarding every time he returns. Mahler’s symphonies are part of the fiber of his musical being, and in his hands, the five movements and 70 minutes of the Fifth Symphony carry the emotional power of a lifetime.

LSO Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas brings a lifetime’s insight and experience to Gustav Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony.

Mahler Fifth Symphony

Strong emotions and primary colours, as Kevin John Edusei conducts high-octane musical dramas from Stravinsky, Bartók and Canadian composer Samy Moussa.  

It’s springtime in old Russia, and as the fair-goers jostle and laugh, a puppeteer retells a tale of love, jealousy … and murder. Don’t worry, though: they’re only puppets. Aren’t they? There’s more to music than meets the ear, even when it’s as playful as Stravinsky’s riotous ballet, or as passionate as Bartók’s paprika-flavoured Second Violin Concerto. And especially when – like Samy Moussa’s Crimson – it’s creating wondrous new sounds, straight out of thin air. 

Guest conductor Kevin John Edusei is making an impact here in the UK: an artist who (according to The Guardian) delivers ‘tasteful restraint and explosive energy’ with the same effortless flair. He’s joined for Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto by one of our in-house stars, LSO Leader Roman Simovic.

Kevin John Edusei conducts high-octane musical dramas from Stravinsky, Bartók and Canadian composer Samy Moussa.

In Living Colour: Stravinsky’s Petrushka

Berg, Bach, Haydn and Claude Vivier – Barbara Hannigan brings four maverick masterworks into a very personal kind of conversation.

Across three centuries, a grief-stricken Alban Berg reaches out to the spirit of Bach. Far from civilisation, Haydn channels dark emotions into a new kind of music. And a Canadian outsider, alone with his imagination, takes a solitary singer and a small orchestra and thinks his way back into a tragic childhood. Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child might just be the single most poignant modern masterpiece that you’ve never heard.

But that’s what Barbara Hannigan does – she gathers up unexpected musical threads, and weaves them into something revelatory. Today she conducts two equally committed soloists: violinist Veronika Eberle (‘a spotlessly pure and serene tone’ – The Strad) and the ‘fearless’ Greek soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou.

Concert Order:
Contrapunctus XIX - JS Bach Arr. Luciano Berio
Violin Concerto - Alban Berg, Veronika Eberle - Violin
Symphony No. 44, 'Trauer' - Jospeh Haydn
Lonely Child - Claude Vivier, Aphrodite Patoulidou - Soprano

Berg, Bach, Haydn and Claude Vivier – Barbara Hannigan brings four maverick masterworks into a very personal kind of conversation.

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Mendelssohn's Elijah

London Symphony Orchestra

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