London Philharmonic Orchestra

The London Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham and has been headquartered at the Southbank Centre since 1951. Such internationally acclaimed conductors as Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt, and Kurt Masur have influenced the orchestra’s history in their roles as chief conductors. In 2007 Vladimir Jurowski was named Principal Conductor; Andrés Orozco-Estrada has served alongside him since 2015 as Principal Guest Conductor. Along with about forty annual concerts at Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre, the London Philharmonic regularly performs as the resident orchestra in Brighton and Eastbourne; for more than fifty years, it has additionally played every summer at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 2018 the orchestra is offering a focus on the work of Igor Stravinsky titled Changing Faces: Stravinsky’s Journey. Tours have taken these musicians all around the world: the London Philharmonic became the first British orchestra to tour to Russia in 1956 and, in 1973, the first-ever Western orchestra to perform in China. The 2017-18 season included appearances in Japan, China, Romania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Italy, and France. The orchestra’s active dedication to recording, which also includes collaborations with the film industry, began as early as 1932, when, just three days after its inaugural concert, it made its first records; since 2005 the London Philharmonic Orchestra has maintained its own in-house label, on which more than one hundred recordings have been released to date. Through its youth programs, including concerts for young students and families and an education project for highly talented emerging musicians, the orchestra annually reaches thousands of young people.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 17 August 1992 in a program of works by Beethoven and Strauss conducted by Klaus Tennstedt.

July 2018