The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra presents a captivating concert programme for early 2027

Promising a fascinating encounter between orchestral grandeur and the restless energy of modern life, this concert sees superstar pianist Hayato Sumino return to the BBC Philharmonic for a rare performance of Leonard Bernstein’s beguiling Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety.

Inspired by W. H. Auden’s poem, the work follows four strangers as they spend an evening contemplating the human condition, with Bernstein’s shifting musical language moving between jazz-inflected exuberance and more introspective passages.

Jennifer Higdon’s percussive Fanfare Ritmico opens the evening, while Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony brings the programme to a close. Premiered in 1945, the symphony balances muscular orchestral writing with moments of warmth and hope, guaranteeing a stirring conclusion under conductor Roderick Cox.

From the close-up intensity of a string quartet to the immense forces of a symphony orchestra, Chief Conductor John Storgårds continues his exploration of Shostakovich with the composer’s Seventh Symphony, the monumental Leningrad. Written during the Second World War and associated with the city’s resistance to Nazi siege, the work unfolds on a peerlessly epic scale, its famous march building into a formidable orchestral climax.

Before this sweeping vista of defiance, the NOVO Quartet performs Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, a deeply personal work dedicated to the victims of fascism and war wherein the bonds between musical expression and autobiography are tightened in raw, arresting fashion.

Few openings in classical music are as instantly recognisable as the four-note motif that launches Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a defining musical signature that transcends the form as a universally understood herald of doom. Conducted by Eun Sun Kim in her BBC Philharmonic Orchestra debut, this concert sets the timeless masterpiece alongside two works that illuminate the symphonic tradition from different angles.

Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte takes inspiration from the minuet and trio form of a Haydn string quartet, finding unexpected shifts of colour in a seemingly familiar structure. Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, performed by Daniel Müller-Schott, brings lyrical elegance and virtuosic flair before Beethoven’s dramatic finale, completing a programme that connects the classical tradition with one of its most transformative figures.

Bringing together an eclectic cast of composers and musical traditions, this RNCM concert sees acclaimed guitarist Sean Shibe collaborate with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra on a programme exploring the rituals and emotions of funeral music. Known for his adventurous approach to repertoire, Shibe draws on both early music and contemporary composition, revealing the unique yet achingly resonant ways in which composers across the centuries have grappled with grief, remembrance and mortality.

The programme opens with Henry Purcell’s melancholic masterpiece, Funeral Music for Queen Mary, interspersed with Anton Bruckner’s intimate Aequale movements, before George Benjamin’s Fantasia 7 and works by Julia Wolfe and Alex Paxton extend the conversation into the present.

Composer in Residence Cassandra Miller’s Scottish folk-inspired Chanter and György Kurtág’s Grabstein für Stephan complete an evening that finds striking variety and poignant familiarity in a shared preoccupation with loss.

In March, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra presents the UK premiere of Dad Goes to the Mountain, a new work by Miller shaped by the transformative power of her father’s dementia. Born of an often inarticulable experience, Miller’s music examines memory, perception and the limits of expression in a markedly personal, unflinching commission.

The premiere follows Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, whose spacious textures and rich string writing evoke an ageless musical landscape. After the interval, John Storgårds leads Walton’s First Symphony, a frenzied work of tremendous momentum and heartbroken volatility that builds from brooding tension towards an uncompromising conclusion.

Perhaps no other symphony in the classical canon reaches for a more expansive vision of humanity than Beethoven’s Ninth, whose final movement transforms Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy into a rousing celebration of humanity and shared endeavour for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The result is one of classical music’s great expressions of fellowship, a declaration of shared purpose and collective hope.

In both scale and ambition, the Ninth delivers a distinctive concert experience, from the tension of its opening movements to the exhilarating arrival of the choral finale. The symphony concludes a varied programme of works that explore music as a form of united expression: Pauline Oliveros’s Tuning Meditation invites performers into a shared act of attentive listening, while Roderick Williams’s Ave Verum Corpus Re-imagined revisits a sacred text. John Adams’s Absolute Jest, which draws on Beethoven’s string quartets, provides a contemporary counterpoint before the evening culminates in the Ninth’s triumphant paean to peace.

In April, the orchestra turns to Mendelssohn’s evocative musical climes and the sparkling character of Mozart’s horn writing, with a programme that moves from the rugged sea-swept drama of Fingal’s Cave to the grandeur of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Mozart’s Fourth Horn Concerto offers a lighter interlude, its playful melodies and graceful solo arrangements showcasing his singular sense for jocularity.

The evening opens with Gabriela Ortiz’s Clara, before Mozart’s concerto gives way to Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, inspired by the striking landscape of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides. The Reformation Symphony draws the programme to a close, weaving historical and religious influences into a work of brightening cheer, imposing stature and lyrical warmth.

Renowned pianist Pavel Kolesnikov joins the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for an unmissable opportunity to hear one of the most distinctive performers of his generation in the RNCM’s more intimate concert setting.

The evening begins with Adams’s Eros Piano, a reflective work shaped in part by the composer’s adoration of jazz pianist Bill Evans, before Britten’s Young Apollo brings soaring flourishes and surging piano sequences that evoke the god of light and music.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, the ‘Jeunehomme’, rounds off the event with a prodigious work from the composer’s early twenties, effortlessly combining lyrical restraint with sparkling energy.

Celebrating the rich musical culture of eighteenth-century Dresden, this RNCM concert sees the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra join forces with harpsichordist and director Johanna Soller for an evening of all-things Baroque, with two of Bach’s celebrated Brandenburg Concertos as the main attractions.

Written for an unusual variety of instrumental combinations, the concertos encapsulate Bach’s ingenuity as a composer, with intricate counterpoint, lively exchanges between groups and a sense of invention that keeps the music in constant motion.

Bach’s works sit alongside music by Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann David Heinichen and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, together celebrating the fiendish flair and profound tenderness of the legendary contributors to the famed Saxon court orchestra.