PRESS RELEASE For immediate release PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES ITS 70TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON AT SOUTHBANK CENTRE Highlights include: Myths and Rituals: Stravinsky’s Journeys: a flagship series for the 70th Anniversary season devised and led by Esa-Pekka Salonen A 70th Anniversary Gala Concert featuring a stellar cast and conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi A three-concert partnership between Esa-Pekka Salonen and Lang Lang, exploring the music of Grieg, Prokofiev and Bartók Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting Rachmaninov’s major orchestral works and Daniil Trifonov completing his Rachmaninov Piano Concerto Cycle Andris Nelsons returns to London to continue his Bruckner Symphony Cycle Part 2 of Paavo Jarvi’s Nielsen Series Jakub Hrůša leading Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 3 Two concerts with Håkan Hardenberger celebrating the virtuosity of the trumpet An expanded Philharmonia at the Movies series The return of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition to London with the Philharmonia performing the opening and closing concerts Six Music of Today performances curated by Unsuk Chin and focusing on composers including Julian Anderson, Param Vir, Friedrich Goldmann and Dieter Ammann A new series of free pre-concert chamber music concerts, programmed and performed by members of the Orchestra and open to all Return visits from artists including Daniele Gatti, Herbert Blomstedt, Yuri Temirkanov, John Wilson and Arcadi Volodos. The Philharmonia Orchestra and its Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, have announced their 70th Anniversary season at the Orchestra’s London home base, Southbank Centre, where the Philharmonia has been Resident Orchestra since 1995. The season will see the Orchestra performing 44 orchestral concerts, together with six small ensemble performances as part of its annual Music of Today series of contemporary composer portraits and six chamber music concerts programmed and performed by members of the Orchestra. The year’s programme is headlined by Salonen’s Myths and Rituals, a major series exploring Stravinsky’s life, music and influences. Esa-Pekka Salonen commented: “This is a particularly important season for the Philharmonia Orchestra and me. As part of the orchestra’s 70th Anniversary, we are celebrating one of the most significant figures in music, Igor Stravinsky, with the multi-disciplinary project Myths and Rituals: Stravinsky’s Journeys. Ritual is at the very heart of Stravinsky’s craft. His creative life ranged from his origins as a late Russian Romantic composer to the near universal status that he achieved later in his life. His compositions would become a synthesis of almost every stylistic idea of the 20th century, and yet the identity and voice are always his, and only his. This series is very personal. I’m conducting music that I’ve performed over many years; music that I used to conduct a lot in my youth, and music that I’ve never conducted before. My hope is that that this project— which travels from the early Russian ballets to the late, great work of the American years—will illuminate Stravinsky’s own journey, and bring this extraordinary, imaginative, powerful music newly to life.” Myths and Rituals: Stravinsky’s Journeys The Philharmonia Orchestra’s keynote 70th Anniversary series is Myths and Rituals: Stravinsky’s Journeys, which aims to build on the success of recent projects led by Esa-Pekka Salonen that explore the life and legacy of composers including Lutosławski and Bartók, and the musical legacy of both Vienna and Paris in the early 20th century. It promises to be one of the most significant projects undertaken by the Orchestra in recent years. Highlights include: Five all-Stravinsky orchestral concerts (four at Southbank Centre, one at St John’s Smith Square), exploring the themes of Rituals, Tales, Myths, Faith and Tragedy Performances of Stravinsky’s large-scale works including the Symphony of Psalms, Perséphone and Oedipus rex alongside the more intimate sound-words of his In Memoriam works dedicated to Aldous Huxley, Dylan Thomas and TS Eliot, and his Requiem Canticles, Mass and Cantata A major series of chamber concerts in London, in association with the Royal College of Music “Explore Stravinsky” immersion days Free pre-concert and post-concert performances A major portfolio of digital and online resources, including a series of specially commissioned documentary films that were made on location in Europe and the USA Partnerships with key cultural organisations in the UK and internationally 70th Anniversary Gala Concert: 27 September 2015 The Philharmonia Orchestra’s 70th Anniversary season opens on Sunday 27 September with a gala performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony No. 9, conducted by Honorary Conductor for Life, Christoph von Dohnányi. Martin Helmchen performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in the first half. A stellar cast of singers (Charlotta Larsson, Ruxandra Donose, Robert Dean Smith and James Rutherford) joins the line-up alongside the Rodolfus Choir and the Philharmonia Voices. Esa-Pekka Salonen/Lang Lang In spring 2012 as part of his pan-European Beethoven Cycle, Esa-Pekka Salonen joined forces with Lang Lang for performances of all five piano concertos at London’s Royal Albert Hall. They renew their artistic collaboration in Autumn 2015 with three concerts over a week, programmed to reflect their shared musical enthusiasms. The first concert (26 November) focuses on Edvard Grieg, pairing the Piano Concerto with a semi-staged performnance of the incidental music from Peer Gynt. On 1 December Lang Lang performs Bartók’s 2nd Piano Concerto alongside orchestral works by Beethoven; and on 3 December the series concludes with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, coupled with extracts from Romeo and Juliet and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. Vladimir Ashkenazy and Daniil Trifonov: Rachmaninov The Philharmonia Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, Vladimir Ashkenazy, joins the Orchestra for three concerts over the course of the 2015/16 season (5 November, 3 March and 14 April), each focused on one of Rachmaninov’s major symphonic works: the 2nd and 3rd symphonies, and the Symphonic Dances. Meanwhile the sensational young pianist Daniil Trifonov, winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, completes his two year series of concerts performing Rachmaninov’s four piano concertos, plus his Variations on a Theme of Paganini, with concerts on 8 and 15 October featuring the 2nd and 4th concertos and the Variations, conducted by Rafael Payare (making his Philharmonia début) and Jakub Hrůša. The Trumpet Shall Sound: Håkan Hardenberger Star trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger returns to the Philharmonia for two performances that continue his exploration of both the virtuosity of the instrument and of composition for it during the 20th century, which he begins in February 2015 with a performance of HK Gruber’s Aerial (22 February 2015). Berne Alois Zimmermann’s Trumpet Concerto, which Hardenberger performs under Andris Nelsons’s baton on 6 December 2015, is titled Nobody knows de trouble I see, and incorporates the iconic African-American spiritual tune into its jazz-influenced form. He then returns to the Royal Festival Hall on 28 January 2016 with conductor Santtu Mathias-Rouvali to perform Bridge, Rolf Martinsson’s first Trumpet Concerto, which was written for him and ingeniously encodes his name into the virtuoso solo part. Andris Nelsons: Bruckner Symphony Cycle The Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra returns to London to continue his exploration of Bruckner’s symphonies. He opens his Bruckner Symphony Cycle with the 3rd Symphony with the Philharmonia as part of the current season on 8 February 2015, and returns in December 2015 to lead the 8th Symphony, in a performance that also sees him reunited with February 2015 soloist Håkan Hardenberger. Andrew Clements described Nelsons’s Bruckner as “thoughtful and distinctive” in The Guardian in November 2014: “athletic, direct and texturally interesting”. Paavo Järvi: Nielsen Series Part 2 Paavo Järvi continues his highly regarded series exploring Nielsen’s orchestral repertoire, which in 2015/16 season introduces two of the concertos alongside symphonic repertoire, also showcasing the talent of Philharmonia Principal Wind players. Principal Flute Samuel Coles performs the Flute Concerto alongside the 5th Symphony (19 November 2015) and Mark van de Wiel plays the Clarinet Concerto in a pairing with the 3rd Symphony on 19 May 2016. Both programmes open with a Haydn symphony. Jakub Hrůša: Mahler 3 The sensational young Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša returns to London for two concerts in 2015/16, working with Daniil Trifonov on the final concert of his Rachmaninov Concerto Cycle on 15 October and then returning to the Royal Festival Hall on 11 February 2016 for a performance of Mahler’s towering 3rd Symphony, together with mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink and the Philharmonia Voices. Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition In 2016 the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition returns to London for the first time in 12 years to celebrate the centenary of its illustrious namesake. Yehudi Menuhin performed with the Philharmonia throughout his life, and the Philharmonia Orchestra will be performing both the Competition’s opening and closing concerts at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. In the opening concert on 7 April 2016, three former winners of the Competition – Tasmin Little, Ray Chen and Rennosuke Fukuda – all perform solo works intimately connected with Menuhin