RLPO announces Vasily Petrenko's final season

Vasily Petrenko will mark his final season with the RLPO with a ‘signature series’ of his greatest hits with the orchestra.

The RLPO’s new season – its 180th – will also feature a host of world premiere performances as well as major works by 'composers in focus' Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, Piazzola and Zemlinsky, many of them marking particular landmark anniversaries.

And the programme, revealed today, will encompass performances from three new Artists in Residence; pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason (who follows her bother Sheku in the role of Young Artist), baritone Roderick Williams, and the duo of Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora maestro Seckou Keita.

Vasily Petrenko, who leaves Liverpool at the end of the 2020/21 season to become music director at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, said: “Despite the issues facing our world right now, I believe music and its power to heal and bring people together are more important than ever.

“And that’s why we're pleased to be announcing our plans for 2020-21, although we know that the challenges we're currently facing will continue for some time.

“I’m confident in the bright future of the orchestra; it will continue to develop as one of this country’s greatest ensembles.

“It has been my immense joy to be a small part of its 180-year history and I'll look forward to returning in my new role, from 2021, as Conductor Laureate.”

Isata Kanneh-Mason. Photo by Robin Clewley

His Signature Series of concerts will feature wors which have become firm favourites of the Phil in concert and on recordings, including pieces by Shostakovich, Elgar and Rachmaninov.

The season is currently due to open on September 26 with Tchaikovsky-competition prize winner pianist Mao Fujita.

And it will come to a conclusion on July 10 2021 with Petrenko conducting Macedonian pianist Simon Trepceski – together known at Hope Street as ‘the Dream Team’ - in a concert which will also feature the premiere of a new work by Grace-Evangeline Mason.

One hundred years after the birth of Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazzolla, the RLPO will give the world premiere of the orchestration of his Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite for Orchestra in a concert which also includes pianist Pablo Ziegler who collaborated with Piazzolla during the last decade of his life.

Sir Bryn Terfel. Photo by Mitch Jenkins

Meanwhile the list of must-see and rising star artists heading for Hope Street includes pianist Stephen Hough (October 29), violinist Tasmin Little in her farewell concert appearance with the orchestra (October 31), cellists Sheku Kanneh-Mason (January 17) and Truls Mørk (March 11), Sir Bryn Terfel (March 20), violinists Vilde Frang (1 May 1) and Baiba Skride (May 13/14), and pianists Paul Lewis (May 23) and Nobuyuki Tsujii (May 29).

And special events include Vasily Petrenko ‘In Conversation’ with Arts Council chief Darren Henley on May 12, and a series of Music and Wine evenings which will feature a conductor or scholar giving insight into recordings of their favourite music with the musical extracts paired with wines and cheeses chosen to complement each piece.

Tickets go on sale as part of a subscription package from May 6 and on general sale on June 15.

For details of the full season, visit the website HERE.