Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the oldest surviving professional symphony orchestra and the second oldest concert-giving organisation in the UK.

Beginnings

The origins of the Orchestra’s concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, which administers it, by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840. The Phil has remained at the heart of Liverpool’s cultural life ever since.

In 1957, the Liverpool Philharmonic Society and Orchestra, as they were called then, acquired the title ‘Royal’. A year later, Her Majesty the Queen became Patron – a role she has retained ever since.

In 1989 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and Orchestra received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University and in 1991, were the first organisations to be granted the Freedom of the City of Liverpool. A further honour of Meritorious Service was granted by the City of Liverpool in 1997.

Here and Now

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra gives approximately 70 concerts from September to June in its home, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as well as giving concerts in venues across the City, including its two Cathedrals.

The orchestra plays a regular concert series at Preston Guild Hall and Blackburn King George’s Hall, and makes frequent appearances in London and in concert halls throughout the UK and abroad.

An imaginative approach to programming has seen the orchestra collaborating with an eclectic range of artists from Sir Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello and Toumani Diabaté, to accompanying the City's best pub singers in concert.

Conductors

In 2006, the charismatic young Russian, Vasily Petrenko, took up the baton as Principal Conductor, joining a distinguished line of musicians who have led the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra during its illustrious history including Max Bruch, Sir Charles Hallé, Sir Henry Wood, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir John Pritchard, Sir Charles Groves, Walter Weller, David Atherton, Marek Janowski, Libor Pešek KBE, Petr Altrichter and Gerard Schwarz.

Libor Pešek KBE is Conductor Laureate; Sir Charles Mackerras is Conductor Emeritus, succeeding the late Vernon Handley CBE. Sir Simon Rattle and Vladimir Ashkenazy were the Phil’s Artists Laureate 2008, during Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year.

Far and Wide

The Phil has long been a unique ambassador for the City Region through its extensive touring schedule. The Orchestra made its first international tour to Germany and Switzerland in 1966 with its then Principal Conductor, Sir Charles Groves and has since given concerts in the USA, Far East and throughout Europe.

In 1993 the Phil became the first non-Czech orchestra to have the honour of performing the opening concerts at the Prague Spring Festival, and has returned to Prague several times, most recently in September 2008, Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, with Principal Conductor, Vasily Petrenko making his festival debut.

In the same year, the Mersey Sound returned to Hamburg with Petrenko on a tour that also took in Dusseldorf and Eindhoven in Germany and Enschede in Holland. Future touring plans include Switzerland in March 2010.

New Music

The Phil has championed new music throughout its history. During the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons, the Phil commissioned and presented close on 40 premieres from many of today’s leading composers. These included major works by Sir John Tavener, Karl Jenkins, Michael Nyman and Brett Dean alongside works by Liverpool-born composers John McCabe, Stephen Pratt, Emily Howard, and BBC Young Musician and Composer of the Year 2006, Mark Simpson.

From 2007 to 2009, Kenneth Hesketh was Composer in the House , a prestigious, two-year residency, devised and funded by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the PRS Foundation. In August 2008, Hesketh’s work, Graven Image received its world premiere with the Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko at the BBC Proms. See Downloads to the right to read Kenneth's report on his time as Composer in the House.

The Phil’s new music group Ensemble 10/10 focuses exclusively on contemporary music and has commissioned many composers to write music especially for them. The Ensemble celebrated their 10th birthday in 2008 with the world premieres of ten, ten-minute works that had been commissioned for their anniversary year.

Recordings

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has an extensive and critically acclaimed catalogue of recordings which includes the complete symphonies of Beethoven with Sir Charles Mackerras and Vaughan Williams with the late Vernon Handley, as well as music by Britten, Dvorak, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Smetana, Richard Strauss and Suk. A number of recordings also feature the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir.

In 1998 the Orchestra became the first in the UK orchestra to launch its own recording label, RLPO Live. Many RLPO Live recordings are currently being reissued by Avie Records.

The Orchestra continues to record with many of the world’s leading companies including EMI and Naxos. Recordings of the complete symphonies of Shostakovich with Vasily Petrenko for Naxos, with the first, No. 11 released in Spring 2009, and Nos. 5 and 9 scheduled for Autumn 2009, are amongst current recording projects.

Awards

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s excellence and innovation has been recognised in a number of prestigious awards. Principal Conductor, Vasily Petrenko was named Young Artist of the Year in the Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2007, the 'Oscars' of the classical music world. The Orchestra’s Second Life project received the Innovation Award and went on to win the Big Chip Awards, Best Not for Profit Project 2008 in recognition of its innovation in reaching out to new audiences.

In 2009, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and new music group Ensemble 10/10 were joint winners as Ensemble of the Year in the 20th Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, the most prestigious accolade for live classical music-making in the United Kingdom. Ensemble 10/10 also won the Concert Series of the Year category.

Classic FM Partnership

In 2001, Classic FM and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic announced a partnership, initially for three years, that saw the Orchestra adopted as the ‘Classic FM Orchestra in North West England’ and the station’s first arts partner.

The partnership, which now extends until 2012, was borne out of a mutual desire to build new audiences for classical music and continues to raise the profile of the Orchestra in the Liverpool City Region and across the UK.