From baroque brilliance and Beethoven to Bartók, to Rachmaninoff and bold contemporary writing, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s early 2026 programme offers a spellbinding classical cross-section of live performance, with a series of concerts spanning breathtaking spectacle, heartfelt intimacy and unrivalled range.
Equal parts gothic horror story and a psychological study of intimacy and control, Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle unfolds in a rich realm of transient, as Judith – alone in a foreboding castle – opens seven locked doors, each revealing another unsettling truth about her new husband.
Led by Christopher Purves in the titular role, with Jennifer Johnston as Judith, Bartók’s intoxicating orchestration shifts between warmth, menace and suspense under the baton of their Principal Guest Conductor, Anja Bihlmaier, sung in English to draw the listener further into its claustrophobic world.
The evening opens with Lili Boulanger’s D’un soir triste, written shortly before her death, followed by Kodály’s Dances of Galánta.
From Versailles to Leipzig via Venice, this concert showcases the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at its most versatile with a more intimate musical performance.
Jonathan Cohen directs a slimmed-down orchestra through a sparkling baroque programme that opens and closes at the French court, with music by Lully and Rameau. Along the way, Bach’s Art of Fugue selections sit alongside virtuosic concertos and a selection of mesmerising dances. Principal Oboe Jennifer Galloway joins Orchestra Leader Zoë Beyers in Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin, while trumpet players Tom Fountain and Gwyn Owen deliver fireworks in Vivaldi’s labyrinthine Concerto for Two Trumpets.
On Sat 7 Feb, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra stages a dazzlingly vibrant programme that balances a rising contemporary voice with twentieth century classics.
Performed in Manchester for the first time, Camille Pépin’s Les Eaux célestes draws harmony from the discordant traditions of French impressionism and American minimalism with luxuriant textures inspired by myth and star-crossed lovers.
Before the interval, Elisabeth Brauß returns for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, bursting with jazz rhythms and fiery Basque flavour, and featuring one of the composer’s most tender slow movements. The concert concludes with Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, a work brimming in melody and emotional intensity, with Adam Hickox making his Bridgewater Hall debut as conductor in a programme glowing with generosity and flair.
A fortnight later, acclaimed violist Lawrence Power returns to lead a programme dedicated to love in all its transcendent vulnerability.
In Cassandra Miller’s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling, a piece lauded for its delicacy and emotional rawness upon its premiere, music swells in waves of tremulous fragility and profoundly human reflection.
Alban Berg’s decadent and luxurious Lulu Suite Rondo traces the timeless path from love to desperation, as Lulu moves between suitors with growing anxiety.
The evening closes with Prokofiev’s suite from Romeo and Juliet, one of ballet’s most beloved scores, written as the composer returned to a turbulent Soviet Russia and creating music that remains dramatic, lyrical and instantly recognisable in the classical canon.
This March, Nicholas Carter makes his Bridgewater Hall debut with a programme that reflects further on love, landscape and the aching melancholy of farewells.
Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde begins the concert in a wash of longing and unresolved harmony, oscillating between ecstatic bliss and unresolved feeling, while Edmund Finnis’ The Landscape Wakes receives its UK premiere with glistening textures and melodic writing from one of Britain’s most exciting composers.
Arnold Bax’s Tintagel adds rhapsodic drama inspired by Cornish myth, before soprano Sarah Wegener joins the orchestra for Strauss’s Four Last Songs, a final, heartbreakingly wistful reflection on life, written in 1948 as the composer contemplated his own mortality.
On Sat 21 Mar, Composer in Residence Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer-winning oratorio for choir and ensemble Anthracite Fields brings an unflinching musical memorial for American miners and their struggle to the Bridgewater Hall.
Growing up in Pennsylvania, Wolfe witnessed firsthand the relentless labour, tragic loss and collective resistance that defined mining communities, where human sacrifice was inseparable from the task of fuelling a nation.
Drawing on extensive research and oral histories, she weaves together testimonies from injured workers, grieving communities and the fiery words of union leader John M. Lewis. Wolfe’s fluid yet forthright writing is performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra alongside the BBC Singers. The evening also featuring the world premiere of a new work by Laura Bowler.
www.bbc.co.uk/philharmonic
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Wed 7 Jan 2026
On Sat 17 Jan, the orchestra kicks off the year in striking fashion with a programme shaped by brooding mystery, crystalline concertos and the sharp relief of film noir iconography.
Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question sets the tone with its quietly radical meditation on meaning and uncertainty, moving from serene strings to solo trumpet and dissonant, agitated woodwind. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 follows, a work of gossamer beauty and introspective lyricism that gently redefines the relationship between soloist and orchestra.
Stepping in at short notice, Alim Beisembayev brings clarity and poise to one of Beethoven’s most poetic creations. After the interval, John Adams’s City Noir rounds off the proceedings with a swaggering, jazz-inflected symphony inspired by half-lit streets of Los Angeles and its glamorous, cinematic peak.