December 2017 In this issue... • • • • • • • •
New on sale Royal Festival Hall RPO Resound Meet the Players RPO on Tour RPO CDs A special festive offer News and moves
I’m thrilled to bring you the latest edition of fortissimo – the newsletter for RPO friends. The RPO has recently announced TWO brand new and exciting shows at the Royal Albert Hall next year, both of which may appeal to the younger members of your family. The upcoming Christmas break could make the ideal opportunity to invite your loved ones! Do read on for all our other news and, if we don’t see you at one of the RPO’s many festive concerts this month, we wish you an exceptionally Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Years! With best wishes, Jo Thomson (Friends’ & Groups’ Manager) and the rest of the RPO Marketing team: Alex, Chris, Doran, Izzie and Joseph!
BRAND NEW at the Royal Albert Hall! Why not share your exclusive friends’ discounts and benefits with the younger members of your family and treat them to a thrilling live concert experience? These two exciting new shows bring the best of popular themes and music to one of the world’s most iconic venues, encouraging engagement with wider audiences. Don’t miss out; book your seats from our priority allocation of tickets today!
PlayStation® in Concert Wednesday 30 May 2018, 7.30pm Sensational soundtracks from hit PlayStation® games: Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Horizon Zero Dawn, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, The Last Guardian and more – with a special guest presenter and dazzling light display. Unmissable!
Movies’ Greatest Heroes Saturday 7 July 2018, 2.30pm – matinee show! A must-see musical adventure, perfect for all the family! Bringing to life caped crusaders, magical wizards and swash-buckling pirates with hit themes from: Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Wonder Woman, Superman and more!
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www.rpo.co.uk/friends • 020 7608 8855
Supporting London’s most versatile orchestra!
Unmissable concerts at the Royal Festival Hall If you’ve not yet secured your seats for the RPO’s sensational series of concerts at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, from February–May 2018 series, featuring a host of critically acclaimed conductors and soloists, do not hesitate to contact us and we’ll book you the best seats available from our priority allocation! Coming up...
Ilan Volkov conducts Mahler’s ‘Titan’ Symphony Tuesday 6 February 2018, 7.30pm Ilan Volkov begins this new series with a suitably gripping concert. Opening with Liszt’s brooding From the Cradle to the Grave, before the outstanding soloist Pavel Kolesnikov performs Beethoven’s dynamic Piano Concerto No.4; this inaugural concert ends with Mahler’s great First Symphony, erupting in majestic brass fireworks.
Charles Dutoit conducts Don Quixote Tuesday 27 March 2018, 7.30pm RPO Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Charles Dutoit, takes the helm for Strauss’ tone poem, Don Juan, and Mozart’s light-hearted Symphony No.35. Celebrated cellist Alban Gerhardt is then welcomed on stage to perform with the Orchestra for Strauss’ playful Don Quixote – an evocative depiction of one of the world’s best-selling literary works.
Steven Isserlis performs Elgar’s Cello Concerto Wednesday 4 April 2018, 7.30pm Thomas Dausgaard joins the RPO to conduct a delightful programme, featuring: Britten’s dramatic Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Elgar’s evergreen Cello Concerto, performed here by the great British cellist, Steven Isserlis, and Rachmaninov’s final ever composition – the vivacious, yet lyrical, Symphonic Dances.
Pinchas Zukerman performs Bruch Thursday 26 April 2018, 7.30pm The Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor, Pinchas Zukerman, is sure to dazzle as both conductor and soloist in this exciting concert. Featuring: Sibelius’ mesmerising The Swan of Tuonela, Bruch’s fiendish Violin Concerto, as well as Elgar’s stirring Sospiri, and also his quintessentially English Enigma Variations. Not to be missed!
Charles Dutoit conducts The Firebird Wednesday 16 May 2018, 7.30pm Maestro Dutoit returns for a showstopping finale to this spectacular series. We are thrilled to welcome virtuosic pianist Kirill Gerstein for Beethoven’s energetic, yet moving, Piano Concerto No.5, ‘Emperor’. Stravinsky’s complete score for The Firebird – a dramatic illustration of the legendary Russian fairy tale – concludes this thrilling evening. All tickets: £50–£10 (before discounts and fees).
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www.rpo.co.uk/friends
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020 7608 8855
RPO Resound This November, RPO Resound – in collaboration with one of its partners, Westminster Music Library – was thrilled to re-visit its WWI-themed programme, Behind the Lines, engaging Westminster residents in a creative exploration of war-time composers and repertoire. Previous workshops in the programme explored works by Vaughan Williams and Elgar with families, early years children, primary and secondary school pupils, and the elderly. In this extension project, the model was expanded to include those with special educational needs (SEN). Over a week, pupils from Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee School in Westminster – an SEN school that supports young people with severe and complex learning difficulties and physical disabilities – explored Holst’s Mars and Venus from The Planets. Prior to this, pupils had attended an RPO rehearsal at Cadogan Hall, seeing the Orchestra perform live, and learning about the rehearsal process.
Ben Wolstenholme (Double Bass)
What was the first recording you ever bought? Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. What inspired you to become a musician? My parents told me it was a saxophone quartet that I was completely transfixed by in a park when I was little. I subsequently spent my school years working towards being a clarinet and sax player, but I think a lot of my inspiration came from my Dad rocking out on his guitar in the garage at the weekends. Strangely, it was trying to copy him that led me to discover the (double) bass! In the RPO, with whom have you enjoyed working? It’s probably a common answer but I’ve loved playing for Charles Dutoit – incredibly inspiring both musically and generally. A particularly special moment for me was playing for Maestro Dutoit along with Martha Argerich. Who gave you your most valued piece of advice? The more you listen, the more you learn – that was from my teacher, Richard Lewis.
Next, several pupils visited Westminster Music Library, learning about its resources and how musicians use scores and periodicals to study music.
Where is your favourite place to perform? It might have to be the Royal Albert Hall. I think it’s to do with imagining all the various performers and orchestras that have walked onto that stage – that and it’s a fairly awe-inspiring building just on its own.
Ben Wolstenholme’s concert picks for the RPO’s London Season:
Back at school, three groups of pupils – aged 11–16 years old – took part in the creative workshops, where they listened to trios of RPO players perform WWI-themed repertoire and then devised their own creative extensions and responses using voice as well as instruments. Finally, all the pupils joined together to perform their group pieces to the entire school. Featuring some rather outstanding solo and duet moments, this was a truly momentous and celebratory performance!
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Meet the Players:
• With a Song in My Heart: The Golden Sound of Hollywood Weds 14 February, 7.30pm – Cadogan Hall Star vocalist, Louise Dearman (Wicked), performs sparkling classics: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Don’t Rain On My Parade, and many more! • Symphonic Rock Tues 1 May, 7.30pm – Royal Albert Hall Rock and pop hits from: The Rolling Stones, George Michael, Adele, Take That... and more.
www.rpo.co.uk/friends
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020 7608 8855
RPO on Tour The Orchestra’s ever-hectic touring schedule recently included concerts with Charles Dutoit and Martha Argerich at the Lucerne Summer and George Enescu Festivals, as well as in Luxembourg, Geneva and Rolle (see the RPO truck in Rolle, pictured right). In September, the acclaimed violinist Susanne Hou joined the RPO for concerts in Taipei, Changsha, Shanghai and Beijing (see some of the players in Tiananmen square, pictured below right), and at Nanjing’s Forest Festival on 1 October, to help mark sixty-eight years of the People's Republic of China. We gather it’s something of an understatement to say it was quite the travelling from Shanghai to Nanjing on this public holiday, given it’s the busiest day for travel across China! See Susanne Hou perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on Tuesday 27 February 2018 at Cadogan Hall!
New RPO CDs The Golden Age of Hollywood: The Great Musicals Classic songs from Hollywood’s golden era of musicals, including: The Sound of Music, Guys and Dolls, Oliver!, High Society… and more! R.R.P. £10 (friends save up to 50%!).
A special festive offer! Why not share the exclusive discounts and benefits you receive with your family and friends during 2018? Make your friend an RPO friend this Christmas time and receive a FREE RPO CD of your choice – it really is the gift that keeps on giving!
Players’ News We warmly welcome Mark O'Leary (No.6 Double Bass) this autumn and, in the New Year, Anna Stuart (No.9 Cello), Sophie Mather (No.13 First Violin), Jean Baptist-Tosseli (No.5 Cello) and Naomi Watts (No.8 Cello).
Office News We also have several big RPO welcomes for the following staff members: ● Alice Laddiman as RPCO Events and RPO Recordings Assistant, who joins us from the Philharmonia. ● Steve Brown as Stage and Transport Manager, who also joins us from the Philharmonia. Steve takes over from Chris Ouzman, who transported the RPO and all its instruments around the UK and the rest of the world for nearly eighteen years and who will be sorely missed. ● Grace Green as Concerts Assistant, who joins us from RPO friends benefits: the Royal Philharmonic Society. Grace takes over from • Up to 50% off tickets and CDs Thomas Hansell, to whom we said a sad goodbye in • FREE rehearsal passes the summer after over three years with the RPO and • Priority ticket allocation and dedicated booking line who has moved to pastures new with the Monteverdi • Exclusive special offers Choir and Orchestras. • Complimentary tickets and concert programmes ● Prudence DiStasio as Development Coordinator, (Triple forte friends only) joining us from the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. ... and more! ● Mark Farrall as our Orchestral Driver, having worked Please be sure to contact the RPO office (rather than in various technical positions at several arts and music the venue) to obtain your RPO friends discounts.* organisations across London. *applicable to RPO ‘own-promotion’ concerts in London only.
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 16 Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0QT Visit: www.rpo.co.uk/friends • Tel: 020 7608 8855 (Mon–Fri, office hours) • Email: friends@rpo.co.uk