A Russian in exile, an Englishman in despair, and a Puerto Rican take on fantastical fandangoes: a welcome visit from the RLPO under its charismatic Chief Conductor Domingo Hindoyan.

Star pianist Yunchan Lim joins the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for this exclusive Royal Albert Hall performance. As the youngest-ever winner of the Gold Award at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, he has since enjoyed invitations from leading ensembles and venues worldwide, resulting in dazzling performances that have been lauded by audiences and critics alike. His performances combine a prodigious technique with a depth and musical maturity far beyond his 20 years. Yunchan performs Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, a work in which Chopin took the piano and transformed it into the ultimate vehicle for the Romantic imagination, filled with a passion for his Polish homeland.  

In the second half of this concert, Music Director Vasily Petrenko transports us to the Alps on an epic musical journey that celebrates the glory of nature. Written for a vast orchestra of over 100 players, Richard Strauss’ thrilling tone poem takes us from sunrise to sunset on an expedition through shimmering glaciers and flowering meadows, where we will feel the full force of nature as the mountains are battered by a powerful storm. This is music that demands a grand setting, and they don’t come much grander than the magnificent Royal Albert Hall.   

Kindly supported by RPO President, Aline Foriel-Destezet 

Experience Opera North up close in this concert performance of a rare Verdi masterpiece that bristles with high emotion and political intrigue.

Heralded as one of the world’s finest musicians, legendary violinist Maxim Vengerov takes to the Royal Albert Hall stage with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance that is not to be missed. His distinguished career as both a violinist and conductor already spans more than four decades, and his glittering collection of awards, from Grammys to Classical BRITs, gives just a hint of the magical performance that this great master will treat us to. Described as ‘a virtuoso at the peak of his powers’ (The Guardian), Maxim is the perfect soloist for Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, a piece suffused with the atmosphere of his Finnish homeland, a nation which was still yearning for independence. 

Music Director Vasily Petrenko concludes this concert with Stravinsky’s dramatic musical illustration of the Russian fairytale, The Firebird. The ballet music, as you might expect, is extremely theatrical, from its menacing opening that foretells the trouble ahead to the ethereal strings that conjure the magic of the enchanted Firebird. 

Kindly supported by RPO President, Aline Foriel-Destezet 

Spearheaded by France’s flagship contemporary music group, the new, the nearly new, and a 20th century classic are stitched into a programme that explores slavery and the Caribbean experience.

Don’t be misled by the title: for Tchaikovsky, ‘Pathétique’ meant ‘full of emotion’ and when he composed his autobiographical final symphony… well, let’s just say that he didn’t hold back. Soaring romance, desperate tragedy and brilliant celebration: it’s all here, in a symphony that leaves no heartstring untugged, right up to its devastating and unforgettable conclusion. If you’ve heard our guest conductor Antonello Manacorda in action at the Royal Opera House, you’ll know that he aims straight for the heart of everything he conducts. So expect elegance and joy in Mozart’s exuberant Overture to The Magic Flute, and pure energy when he joins RPO Artist-in-Residence Johan Dalene to play the piece with which Dalene shot to fame in 2019: the powerful Violin Concerto by Carl Nielsen. It’s possible that no one alive plays it better.

Our Shostakovich cycle began with the Quartet No 1, and ends, inevitably, with No 15, staring death resolutely in the face, a work heart-stopping in its searing intensity.

The winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition 2021 conjures up contrasting virtuoso marvels, including Chopin’s poetic and powerful 24 Preludes.

Be the first to hear new works by the Philharmonia’s 2024/25 Composers’ Academy Fellows.

One of early music’s true visionaries steers this journey through a century of European music, exploring the trailblazing sounds of the Baroque era.

The wind rises, and waves smash against the North Sea coast of England. The earth shakes, as the very ground beneath our feet threatens to give way. And, in 19th-century Russia, a chemist with a gift for music, dreams of ancient times and exotic tribes, and creates sheer sonic alchemy. Music can show us the world in magical new ways, and as conductor Gemma New brings the RPO’s season to a close, she’s chosen four pieces that stir the imagination even while they thrill the senses. Britten’s seascapes, Borodin’s oriental fantasies and Victoria Borisova-Ollas’ tribute to the imagination of Salman Rushdie will make a vivid setting for the playfulness and wit of Prokofiev’s brilliant Third Piano Concerto – played by young pianist Daniel Ciobanu for whom every performance is a new adventure.

The Philharmonia and their Principal Conductor Santtu pull out all the stops in the finale of their 2024/25 season.

Inspired by Behrouz Boochani's book of his refugee journey and six-year-long incarceration in Manus Island, the LSO and Jonathan Lemalu give the UK premiere of this heart-stopping song-cycle. 

For centuries, even the most gifted composers have found themselves persecuted or marginalised simply because of who they were. As a gay man in Tsarist Russia, Tchaikovsky knew what it was to be an outsider, and he poured all his emotions into his Fourth Symphony: a no-holds-barred emotional autobiography, pulsing with melody and torn by raw and dangerous passions. ‘Petrenko’s Fourth is a white-knuckle ride’ wrote Gramophone magazine, and he certainly won’t hold back tonight. There’s no shortage of great tunes in the first half of the concert, too, as Petrenko champions Dorothy Howell’s Lamia – a wildly romantic tale of forbidden love – and the lovely piano concerto by the African-American composer Florence Price. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason is the soloist in music that was side-lined for decades and is only now receiving its due.

Soprano Ruby Hughes joins forces with cellist Natalie Clein and pianist Julius Drake for an intimate concert of lyrical, lively and folk-influenced works.