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Season Introduction
Season Features
2008 concerts
Friday 27 June
7.30pm: Brighton Festival Chorus
Sunday 5 October
2.45pm: Vaughan Williams
Sunday 26 October
2.45pm
Saturday 15 November
7.30pm
Sunday 23 November
2.45pm
Sunday 7 December
2.45pm
Wednesday 31 December
2.45pm: New Year's Eve Viennese Concert
2009 concerts
Sunday 18 January
2.45pm: Beethoven
Sunday 8 February
2.45pm: Beethoven
Sunday 1 March
2.45pm: Mendelssohn
Sunday 15 March
2.45pm
Sunday 29 March
2.45pm
The BPO's 84th Concert Season
Orchestral songs, dances and plays
View/download the Early Bird Season Brochure (PDF file)
View/download an Early Bird Season Ticket booking form (PDF file)
Welcome to the BPO’s 84th concert season: a season of orchestral ‘songs’, dances and plays.
This season has song, dance and plays at its heart, sometimes literally — such as ‘Ah! perfido’, two dances from Harnasie or the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream — and sometimes merely in influence or idea — the Siegfried Idyll, Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 or the Serenade to Music.
Last year’s theme was ‘symphonies’ and so they take a back seat this year, although we continue our Beethoven Symphonies cycle, as well as performing others by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky.
Vaughan Williams’ ‘Sea Symphony’ is featured in the celebrations of our former President’s 50th anniversary in 2008. Haydn and Mendelssohn are also well-represented in their anniversary year, 2009.
The range of music is as wide as ever, from Purcell and Bach through to Sallinen and Szymanowski, and I’m delighted to welcome three guest conductors, two of them making their first appearance with the BPO. Ralf Gothóni will be directing from the piano, and in an unusual change of scenery I will be doing the same from the harpsichord in Bach’s Suite in B minor!
That’s not the only surprise though, and I hope you will join me not only for the many well-known, well-loved works in this season, but also to discover some of the more unusual corners of the repertoire.
Barry Wordsworth
Music Director/Principal Conductor
See the special features in the 2008-09 season
(including free concert programmes for download)