Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Awarded the Royal title in 1957, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra presents its schedule of concerts under the aegis of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, which offered its first event on March 12, 1840. It is the U.K.'s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra. The recording catalog of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic stretches back to the 78 rpm era but has accelerated in the 2010s and 2020s. In 2025, the group, under new conductor Domingo Hindoyan, issued the album Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 'Pathétique'; Souvenir de Florence. Vasily Petrenko was appointed principal conductor of the orchestra in September 2006 and in September 2009 became chief conductor. Petrenko joined a distinguished line of musicians who have led the orchestra during its illustrious history, including Max Bruch, Sir Charles Hallé, Sir Henry Wood, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir John Pritchard, and Sir Charles Groves, among many other notable names. In 2021, he was succeeded by Domingo Hindoyan, whose contract has been extended through 2028. The orchestra gives over 60 concerts each season, and in recent seasons has given world premiere performances of major works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir John Tavener, James Horner, and Sir James MacMillan, among others, alongside works by Liverpool-born composers and others based in North West England. Alone among Britain's orchestral societies, the RLPS owns its own concert hall, a 1939 art deco structure designed by Herbert J. Rowse. Collaborations with international artists from rock and pop include those with Liverpool's own Sir Paul McCartney (in the Liverpool Oratorio), Elvis Costello, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and Echo & the Bunnymen. In the 2010s, additions to the orchestra's critically acclaimed catalog of recordings included Vaughan Williams: A London Symphony and Pastoral Symphony with Andrew Manze. Manze's Vaughan Williams cycle was the orchestra's second to receive wide acclaim; an earlier set under Vernon Handley was recorded in the mid-'80s. With Petrenko, recordings included Rachmaninov's complete piano concertos and three symphonies, and the complete symphonies of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Elgar. The recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 was the Gramophone Awards' Orchestral Recording of the Year in 2011. Tchaikovsky's Symphonies 1, 2 and 5 won Orchestral Recording of the Year and Recording of the Year at the BBC Magazine Awards in 2017. The orchestra was extremely prolific on recordings in the late 2010s, issuing nine recordings during the year 2019 alone. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has often recorded for Onyx Classics and Naxos but has also been heard on many other labels, including Warner Classics, Toccata Classics, and Champs Hill Records. By 2020, the orchestra's catalog numbered more than 100 albums. That year, the orchestra released albums of music by Elgar, Edward Cowie, and Stravinsky. Hindoyan's debut with the orchestra came in 2022 on the Onyx label with the album Debussy, Dukas, Roussel, and he has maintained a busy schedule on that label. He issued the first volume, Venezuela!, in a Music from the Americas series in 2024, and that was followed in 2025 by the album Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 'Pathétique'; Souvenir de Florence. ~ James Manheim, Rovi