“One relished each coming movement, eager to hear the strength and sensitivity of the orchestra’s playing.”—New York Classical Review
Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides (or Fingal’s Cave) are two of the best-loved pieces of orchestral music. Both are on the program Monday, Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. as London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) returns to Hodgson Concert Hall after a dozen years. This season’s UGA Presents Artist in Focus, Isata Kanneh-Mason, appears as soloist in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto. RPO Music Director Vasily Petrenko conducts.
ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s mission to enrich lives through orchestral experiences that are uncompromising in their excellence and inclusive in their appeal, places it at the forefront of music-making in the UK and internationally. Typically performing approximately 200 concerts a year and with a worldwide live and online audience of more than 60 million people, the orchestra is proud to embrace a broad repertoire and reach a diverse audience. Whilst artistic integrity remains paramount, the RPO is unafraid to push boundaries and is equally at home recording video game, film and television soundtracks and working with pop stars, as it is touring the world performing the great symphonic repertoire.
The RPO is recognized as the UK’s most in-demand orchestra, an accolade that would have pleased Sir Thomas Beecham, who founded the orchestra in 1946. As well as a busy schedule of national and international performances, the orchestra enjoys an annual season of concerts in London’s Royal Albert Hall (where the RPO is Associate Orchestra), the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and Cadogan Hall, where it is celebrating its 20th Season as Resident Orchestra. In the 2023–24 Season, Vasily Petrenko and the orchestra take a fresh look at the works of five major composers in Icons Rediscovered. The series explores the burning inspiration, the living emotion and the human personality behind some of the most iconic masterpieces, including Rachmaninov’s The Bells, Elgar’s Falstaff, Verdi’s Requiem, music from Wagner’s greatest operas, and a semi-staged production of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. The season will also feature an autumn residency in Florida, followed by tours to the UAE and Germany, a twelve-concert tour of the USA, a series of relaxed performances across the UK, and collaborations with guest artists including Principal Associate Conductor Alexander Shelley, Yunchan Lim, Sheku Kanneh-Mason MBE, Miah Persson, Nikolai Lugansky, John Rutter, Jennifer Johnston, and Artist-in-Residence Zlatomir Fung, amongst others.
VASILY PETRENKO
Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2021). He is Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, following his hugely acclaimed fifteen-year tenure as their chief conductor from 2006-2021. He is chief conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (since 2015), associate conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013-2020) and principal conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009-2013). He stood down as artistic director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ in 2021 having been their principal guest conductor from 2016 and artistic director from 2020.
He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Sydney Symphony orchestras, and in North America has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Montreal Symphony orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with more than thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Bavarian State Opera, and Metropolitan Opera, New York.
ISATA KANNEH-MASON
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire with recital programs encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart via Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In concertos, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann (whose piano concerto featured on Isata’s chart-topping debut recording) as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.
Highlights of the 23/24 season include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, London Mozart Players, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on tour in the USA and Germany, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, and Stockholm Philharmonic. With her cellist brother Sheku, she appears in recital in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea in addition to an extensive European recital tour. Isata also gives a series of solo recitals on tour in the USA and Canada as well as at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Lucerne Festival, and across Germany.
SUPPORTED BY
Charles B. and Lynne V. Knapp
Julia Marlowe Swagler and the late Roger Swagler
Sandy Strother Hudson and Cecil C. Hudson
Libby and Van Morris
Ms. Sally Haushalter
June M. Ball
THREE WAYS TO ORDER TICKETS
- Purchase tickets online 24/7 online here.
- Call the Performing Arts Center Box Office at (706) 542-4400, Mon.-Fri., 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
- Visit the UGA Performing Arts Center Box Office, Mon.-Fri., 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (5 minute parking is available in the drop off circle at the Performing Arts Center for purchasing or picking up tickets.)