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Early Bird 2009-2010

Early Bird Booking Form

Pavilion Proms

Season Introduction

Season Features

2008 concerts

5 October
Sunday, 2.45pm

26 October
Sunday, 2.45pm

15 November
Saturday, 7.30pm

23 November
Sunday, 2.45pm

7 December
Sunday, 2.45pm

31 December
Wednesday, 2.45pm


2009 concerts

18 January
Sunday, 2.45pm

8 February
Sunday, 2.45pm

1 March
Sunday, 2.45pm

15 March
Sunday, 2.45pm

29 March
Sunday, 2.45pm

Welcome to the BPO's 84th Concert Season
A season of orchestral songs, dances and plays

View / download a Season Brochure (PDF file)

This season the BPO has a song in its heart, a dance in its step, and a dramatic gesture at every turn! Composers have often taken inspiration from the other performing arts, or written specifically for them, and this season each of our concerts includes music related to songs, dances or plays.

Sometimes the references are literal, such as the ballets by Szymanowski and de Falla, a concert aria by Beethoven, or Mendelssohn's incidental music for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other times the influence is more subtle: Beethoven's seventh symphony and Bach's orchestral suites are dances, Wagner's Siegfried Idyll is a love song for orchestra, Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending is birdsong for the violin and his Serenade to Music uses lines from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

On his death 50 years ago Vaughan Williams was the BPO's President, and so we mark the occasion by opening this season with a concert dedicated to his music, and I'm delighted that Brighton Festival Chorus also join us for this concert as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations. Our series of Beethoven symphonies continues in January/February with nos.5-7, and Haydn and Mendelssohn feature in March 2009, an anniversary year for both composers.

The variety of guest performers is wider than ever - including three conductors, two choirs and an actress - and whether they have already established international reputations, such as Ralf Gothóni, Melvyn Tan or Thomas Trotter or, like Alice Farnham, Alexei Grynyuk or Soojin Han, are just beginning to do so, you can be sure that each of them will bring something unique and exciting to Brighton.

Barry Wordsworth
Music Director/Principal Conductor

See the special features in the 2008-09 season
(including free concert programmes for download)