London Symphony Orchestra
The LSO returns to Brighton Festival under its new Chief Conductor
Barber Adagio for Strings Op 11
Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major
Rachmaninoff Symphony No 2
The eloquent simplicity and elegiac lyricism of Barber’s Adagio for Strings– a 20th-century icon of American music now universally invoked at times of national mourning – contrasts with the whip-cracking wit and jazz-inflected hijinks of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, while Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony sweeps to its triumphant conclusion with one of the biggest ‘big tunes’ in all Russian music. The London Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Designate, Sir Antonio Pappano, is joined by prize-winning French pianist Bertrand Chamayou.
Sir Antonio Pappano
Conductor
Sir Antonio Pappano will take up the role of Chief Conductor of the LSO in September 2024, after becoming Chief Conductor Designate in September 2023. He first collaborated with the Orchestra in 1996 at Abbey Road Studios for a recording of Puccini’s opera La rondine. ‘I’ll never forget the first down beat, when the orchestra just exploded with activity and panache and derring-do,’ recalls Pappano. ‘It felt like I’d gotten into a Ferrari and pushed the gas pedal down!’
Sir Antonio Pappano became Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002, a position he will hold until the end of the 2023/24 season, and was Music Director of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome between 2005 and 2023. In 2012 he was made a Knight of the British Empire for his services to music, and in 2015 he was named the 100th recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal, the body’s highest honour.
Bertrand Chamayou
Piano
Bertrand Chamayou has mastered an extensive repertoire displaying striking assurance, imagination, artistic approach, and remarkable consistency in his performances. He is a regular performer in venues such as the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Lincoln Center, the Herkulessaal Munich and London’s Wigmore Hall. He has appeared at major festivals including New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Beethovenfest Bonn.