Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra launch their 101st season

Elena Urioste, BPO season brochure

After an extremely successful 100^th season, the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra have revealed their plans for their 101^st, and Music Director Joanna MacGregor is not taking her foot off the pedal, with another exciting and varied programme revealed.  

Big names this season include tenor Mark Padmore, cellist Guy Johnston and violinist Elena Urioste. Pianist Junyan Chen (runner up at last year’s Leeds International Piano Competition, also coming away with two other prizes, including the chamber music prize) and Nigerian-Scottish trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo also feature, as well as Lativan accordionist Alise Siliņa. And percussion, so much a feature now of BPO’s programmes, forms the centrepiece of the season’s final concert, with a new work for Brazilian percussion and piano, to be written by MacGregor, and performed by Brazilian percussionist Adriano Adewale and MacGregor on piano. Leader Ruth Rogers also gets a chance to shine as a soloist, along with Romanian violist Sacha Bota, and actor Alistair McGowan returns for the BPO’s popular version of A Christmas Carol.
 

Junyan Chen

And so to the music. The season kicks off with Junyan Chen playing Rachmaninov’s mighty Piano Concerto No. 3, and this sits alongside two great ballet scores, Ravel’s wild La Valse and Bartók’s equally outrageous The Miraculous Mandarin Suite - the ballet was banned in Germany after its 1926 Cologne premiere (2.45pm, Sunday 28 September, Brighton Dome).
 

Ben Gernon

Joanna MacGregor has repeatedly demonstrated her commitment to bringing rarer and more unusual repertoire to the BPO’s programmes, whilst also managing to show that they don’t neglect core repertoire. Last year, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky sat alongside MacMillan, Schnittke and Gwylim Simcock, and of course, who could forget their barnstorming performance of Messaien’s Turangalîla Symphony? But I’m not sure when I last heard the BPO perform Mahler, so it’s great to see his Symphony No. 5 on the schedule, with Ben Gernon conducting, alongside a luscious gem, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto, played by one of the work’s great advocates, Elena Urioste (2.45pm, Sunday 19 October, Brighton Dome).
 

Mark Padmore
© Marco Borggreve

The strings of the BPO are at the heart of their next concert, with tenor Mark Padmore and the BPO’s Principal horn, Alexei Watkins joining them for Britten’s wonderful Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. There’s more Britten, with his Young Apollo, a radiant work for piano, string quartet and strings, and also Britten’s arrangement for string quartet and string orchestra of Purcell’s Chacony in G minor. MacGregor is then the arranger, this time of Dowland for Mr Dowland’s Midnight, and the concert ends with James MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a work full of Scottish folk music influences, with a wild, anarchic ceilidh to finish (7.30pm, Saturday 8 November, Brighton Corn Exchange).
 

Alise Siliņa

December brings two Christmas themed events. The first unusually puts a solo accordionist, Alise Siliņa centre stage, in Václav Torjan’s Fairy Tales: A Concerto for Accordion, which draws on Czech fairy tale characters for its three movements. Ukranian composer Thomas de Hartmann fled from the Nazis to Paris, and it was there that he composed his orchestral work, Koliadky (Noëls ukrainiens, or Ukrainian Christmas Carols). The concert opens with Delius’ rarely performed Eventyr (Once upon a Time), evoking Norway’s folk tales, mythical beasts and landscapes, and they end with the Christmas classic, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite (2.45pm, Sunday 7 December, Brighton Dome). Then, as mentioned above, Alistair McGowan returns, joined by MacGregor and the BPO Brass Quintet for Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, directed by Richard Williams. And this year, they are taking the show to Petworth and Lewes, as well as giving two performances in Brighton (18, 19 & 20 December, St George’s Church Kemptown, St Mary’s Church Petworth & St Anne’s Church Lewes).
 

Aaron Azunda Akugbo

They usher in 2026 with classic, infectiously minimalist Michael Nyman film scores, The Draughtman’s Contract and Prospero’s Books, set alongside Wynton Marsalis’ Trumpet Concerto, which combines jazz with blues and classical trumpet styles in a virtuosic whirlwind, a great showcase for the young trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo (7.30pm, Saturday 24 January, Brighton Dome).
 
Once again combining core repertoire with the lesser known, Mozart’s glorious Sinfonia Concertante, with Ruth Rogers (violin) and Sascha Bota (viola), and the Piano Concerto No. 20, with Joanna MacGregor at the piano, are separated by Lonely Angel: Meditation for violin and strings, by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks. They open with Bartók’s distinctive Romanian Folk Dances, a short suite of piano pieces that Bartók then orchestrated for strings (2.45pm, Sunday 22 February, Brighton Dome).
 

Guy Johnston
© Frances Marshall

John Tavener’s masterpiece, The Protecting Veil is the highlight of their next concert, with cellist Guy Johnston the soloist. The work combines moments of joyful ecstasy with soulful contemplation, and is a real tour de force for the soloist. Before that, Ruth Rogers (violin) is the soloist in Spring and Winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, coupled with Max Richter’s mesmerising take on the movements, from his hit work. Vivaldi Recomposed. And another homage from one composer to another, Vaughan Williams’ richly evocative Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, opens this concert (2.45pm, Sunday 29 March, Brighton Dome).
 

Adriano Adewale

Sounds of Brazil will bring the season to a close, with an eclectic programme, including that new Concerto for Brazilian Percussion and Piano by MacGregor, with soloist Adriano Adewale. This will follow on from Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, a firm favourite to show off all sections of the orchestra. I’m not sure how the Russian witches of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, or the puppets of Stravinsky’s Scenes from Petrushka (or the Britten for that matter) fit in with a Brazilian theme, but this will nevertheless no doubt be a lively, joyful programme to end the 101^st season.
 
Also worth a mention is an exciting new collaboration with Brighton College to take chamber music to younger audiences, with three recitals, each preceded by short masterclasses for students in the afternoons. Concerts include music by Glass, Rameau, Liszt, Haydn, Dvořák and Piazzolla, with Joanna MacGregor being joined by principal string players, and soloists Adriano Adewale and cellist Adrian Brendel (7pm, 10 September, 25 February & 15 April, Brighton College).
 
With low income concessions and tickets from £10 for all under 30s, as well as last-minute offers for first-time bookers. Details of all concerts and tickets at brightonphil.org.uk and brightondome.org.