The BBC Philharmonic is reimagining the orchestral experience for a new generation – challenging perceptions, championing innovation, and taking a rich variety of music to the widest range of audiences. Alongside a flagship series of concerts at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, the orchestra broadcasts concerts on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds from venues across the North of England, annually at the BBC Proms, and from its international tours. It also records regularly for Chandos Records and has produced a catalogue of more than 300 discs and digital downloads. Championing new music, it has recently given world and UK premières of works by Anna Appleby, Gerald Barry, Erland Cooper, Tom Coult, Sebastian Fagerlund, Emily Howard, Robert Laidlow, James Lee III, Grace-Evangeline Mason, David Matthews, Outi Tarkiainen, and Anna Þorvaldsdóttir, the scope of its output extending far beyond standard repertoire. Its Chief Conductor is John Storgårds, with whom the orchestra has enjoyed a long association. The French conductor Ludovic Morlot is its Associate Artist, Anna Clyne, one of the most in-demand composers of the day, its Composer in Association.

In May 2023 the orchestra performed at the Eurovision Song Contest, both at a free concert with the previous Ukrainian winner, Jamala, and in the final itself with the Italian artist Mahmood for a rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine during the Liverpool Songbook medley. The orchestra continues to deliver a programme of engagement with children and young people. At the end of 2023 it released Musical Storyland, a major new 10-part series featuring the musicians of the BBC Philharmonic, which brings famous stories from around the world to life using the power of music. This was the first time an orchestra has been commissioned to make a series of films for UK network television. Through all its activities, the BBC Philharmonic is bringing life-changing musical experiences to audiences across Greater Manchester, the North of England, the UK, and around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk/philharmonic

A fellow student of Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr and the pianist and composer John Ogdon in Manchester, the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies went on to study in Italy with Petrassi. This was followed by a short but influential period teaching at a school in England, and he later studied with Roger Sessions and others at Princeton. He made an innovative addition to the theatrical dimension of music, developing the idea behind Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire; and since the early 1970s, when he moved to the remoteness of the Orkneys, he has developed a less experimental musical language, also writing works associated with the community in which he finds himself. He was knighted in 1987 and appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.

Music Theatre
With the Pierrot Players and later with the ensemble that grew from it, The Fires of London, Maxwell Davies created a series of works in which the dramatic and musical were combined. These, notably, included Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vesalii icones and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot. His opera Taverner, based on alleged incidents in that composer’s life, was staged in London in 1972. Other stage works include the opera The Doctor of Myddfai, the collaborative comic opera Der heisse Ofen, and the chamber operas The Martyrdom of St Magnus and The Lighthouse.

Orchestral Music
Orchestral music by Maxwell Davies includes symphonies and his 10 Strathclyde Concertos for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with a wide variety of works ranging from his early Fantasias on an In Nomine of John Taverner to pieces that reflect the Orkneys, including the popular An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise.

Instrumental and Chamber Music
A wide variety of instrumental and chamber music ranges from his impressive early organ piece Fantasia on O magnum mysterium to the recent Naxos Quartets, commissioned by Naxos.

Watch: Recording the Naxos Quartets of Peter Maxwell Davies

On Wings of Song: Peter Maxwell Davies talks to Jeremy Siepmann

A fellow student of Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr and the pianist and composer John Ogdon in Manchester, the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies went on to study in Italy with Petrassi. This was followed by a short but influential period teaching at a school in England, and he later studied with Roger Sessions and others at Princeton. He made an innovative addition to the theatrical dimension of music, developing the idea behind Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire; and since the early 1970s, when he moved to the remoteness of the Orkneys, he has developed a less experimental musical language, also writing works associated with the community in which he finds himself. He was knighted in 1987 and appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.

Music Theatre
With the Pierrot Players and later with the ensemble that grew from it, The Fires of London, Maxwell Davies created a series of works in which the dramatic and musical were combined. These, notably, included Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vesalii icones and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot. His opera Taverner, based on alleged incidents in that composer’s life, was staged in London in 1972. Other stage works include the opera The Doctor of Myddfai, the collaborative comic opera Der heisse Ofen, and the chamber operas The Martyrdom of St Magnus and The Lighthouse.

Orchestral Music
Orchestral music by Maxwell Davies includes symphonies and his 10 Strathclyde Concertos for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with a wide variety of works ranging from his early Fantasias on an In Nomine of John Taverner to pieces that reflect the Orkneys, including the popular An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise.

Instrumental and Chamber Music
A wide variety of instrumental and chamber music ranges from his impressive early organ piece Fantasia on O magnum mysterium to the recent Naxos Quartets, commissioned by Naxos.

Watch: Recording the Naxos Quartets of Peter Maxwell Davies

On Wings of Song: Peter Maxwell Davies talks to Jeremy Siepmann