One of the world’s great orchestras, the Philharmonia Orchestra has been Classic FM’s Orchestra on Tour since 2003, bringing classical music to venues around the country.
With Residencies in Bedford, Leicester, Basingstoke and Canterbury, and relationships with major concert halls throughout the UK, the Philharmonia and Classic FM’s partnership takes the best of the Orchestra’s London and international concerts programme to audiences around the UK.
Together with its relationships with the world’s most sought-after artists, most importantly its Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the Philharmonia Orchestra is at the heart of British musical life. Other titled conductors are Pekka Kuusisto, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Christoph von Dohnányi. The orchestra works annually with a starry roster of international artists including Lorin Maazel, Andris Nelsons and Daniele Gatti. In 2021, the Philharmonia announced multidisciplinary arts company House of Absolute as Artists in Residence in the first ever collaboration of its kind in the UK.
Today, the Philharmonia Orchestra has the greatest claim of any orchestra to be the UK’s National Orchestra. It is committed to presenting the same quality, live music-making in venues throughout the country as it brings to London and the great concert halls of the world.
The Philharmonia also records scores for films and computer games; it has won two BAFTAs for its recordings of scores for all the Harry Potter computer games.
The orchestra appointed Alexander Van Ingen as its new Chief Executive in September 2020 – the same year it celebrated its 75th anniversary.
Did you know?
It's not just about making music in the concert hall: the Philharmonia uses digital technologies to bring new audiences to classical music. An installation based on Holst’s The Planets, was at London’s Science Museum over three months from May-August 2012.