BBC Symphony Orchestra
Associate Orchestra
The backbone of the BBC Proms and one of the UK's finest orchestras, the BBC SO performs a thrilling, distinctive range of music, from works at the heart of classical music to contemporary premieres.
Events
![A picture of BBC Singers](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/bbc_singers%20%28c%29%20Mark%20Allan.jpg?h=e14708cd&itok=hAmp90S_)
Singers at Six: BBC Singers/Pedersen
Explorations of love and linguistics from the BBC Singers, performing lustrous and dramatic works from the Nordic region under a miraculous conductor.
![Paul Lewis portrait close up](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/2020-05-07%20Paul%20Lewis.jpg?h=8004feb1&itok=t9dNJYvs)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo
A landmark concert as the Orchestra and Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo resurrect an explosive, elegiac and rhapsodic symphony once buried by history and prejudice.
![David Walliams](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-02/David%20Walliams-2.jpg?itok=xND-NbOx)
David Walliams and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Best-selling author David Walliams invites you into his delightful, topsy-turvy world with a concert of words and music as he reads from his brilliant children’s books.
![Dalia Stasevska portrait](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-02/2020-04-17%20Dalia%20Stasevska%20%C2%A9%20Jarmo%20Katila.jpg?h=54f00fd6&itok=noiMQM3g)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Stasevska
Before the fire and ice of Sibelius’s striking First Symphony, Lelia Josefowicz and Dalia Stasevska bring us the UK premiere of Helen Grime’s virtuosic and dreamlike Violin Concert.
![Baiba Skride with violin dark background](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/2020-04-03%20Baiba%20Skride%20%C2%A9%20Marco%20Borggreve.jpg?h=b5f026f4&itok=euYoJ__5)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo
Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo conducts the world premiere of a new concerto by a composer of boundless imagination and Shostakovich’s symphonic cocktail of fantasy and mystery.
![Alpesh Chauhan portrait close up](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/2020-03-27%20Alpesh%20Chauhan.jpg?h=c25c6644&itok=-MH-jA-f)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Chauhan
In his Barbican debut with the Orchestra, Alpesh Chauhan brings us the intense power, cataclysmic terror and exquisite tenderness of Bruckner’s unfinished final symphony.
![Ed Gardner 2018 landscape in white](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2018-01/Ed%20Gardner%20%C2%A9%20Benjamin%20Ealovega.jpg?h=8b113109&itok=8OoaJSCH)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Gardner
Edward Gardner and the Orchestra revisit 1890s Vienna, bringing us all the searing power and extreme emotions of musical Romanticism’s last stand.
![Elizabeth Llewellyn](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-02/LlewellynElizabeth_01082017%20%28c%29%20Shirley%20Suarez.jpg?h=9d52bbfa&itok=n2J9XlhZ)
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Missa Solemnis
A cornerstone of the Barbican’s celebrations of 250 years since Beethoven’s birth: his musical vision of the divine is unleashed by the forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and vocal soloists.
Singers at Six: BBC Singers/Palmer
Step into the strange, wonderful, bizarre and utterly individual world of Gerald Barry as the BBC Singers present recent works from the cult composer.
![martin Frost holding clarinet smoke](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/2020-02-22%20Martin%20Fr%C3%B6st%20%C2%A9%20Sony%20Music%20Entertainment.jpg?h=c33e2823&itok=VwCyZ41F)
BBC SO Total Immersion: Anders Hillborg – Swedish Maverick
Step into the unique and emotive sound-world of our Total Immersion composer Anders Hillborg and his unparalleled handling of the modern symphony orchestra.
![BBC Singers 2020 group image](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-02/2020-02-22%20BBC%20Singers%20Anders%20Hillborg%20TI%20Day.jpg?h=82b073b7&itok=pdWuCbQi)
BBC SO Total Immersion: Anders Hillborg - BBC Singers
In the surroundings of St Giles’s Cripplegate, the voices of the BBC Singers offer immersive and embracing choral works including spine-tingling music by 2020 Total Immersion composer Anders Hillborg.
![A figure walking through a cartoon forest](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2020-01/Singdom%20Kingdom%20200209.jpg?h=f076139c&itok=zTfeFICb)
BBC Singers Family Concert
Voices can be fast, dazzling, and furious! They can be spooky, magical and curious! They can whisper like falling snow, roar like a train, and blaze like fireworks!
![Sakari Oramo conducting landscape](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/Sakari%20Oramo%20conducting.jpg?h=ac4d07ff&itok=mGUH5G9-)
BBC Symphony Orchestra: Mendelssohn's Elijah
A superb cast of soloists joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for Mendelssohn’s great choral masterpiece of grandeur and soulfulness, his musical telling of the story of the prophet Elijah.
![Dimitrios Skyllas](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-05/Skyllas%20for%20Barbican%20-%20BBC.jpg?itok=GI7D1gTm)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Spano
Ritual, lament and incantation lie at the heart of this varied concert, moving from the purity of Arvo Pärt to the rich weave of Rachmaninov’s most epic, passionate and virtuosic concerto.
![Karen Cargill on Stairs](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/2020-01-24%20Karen%20Cargill_0.jpg?h=752eeee1&itok=waAb01VT)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Saraste
Experience Shostakovich’s masterpiece of despair, grotesquery and anger from height of World War II and a brand new work from a compelling new voice from Finland.
![A jailer and his assistant helping a prisoner in chains out of cell](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-12/Prisoner%20image%20c%29%20Chris%20Lee.jpg?h=d47beb84&itok=Y_cDaqu-)
BBC Symphony Orchestra: David Lang’s prisoner of the state
Follow one woman’s personal struggle against political oppression in this dark, seething and engrossing new minimalist opera from the co-founder of pioneering new music collective Bang on a Can.
![Alexander Vedernikov portrait](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-01/Alexander%20Vedernikov%20-%C2%AE%20Marco%20Borggreve.jpg?h=964a4eb4&itok=aX5A8BTF)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Vedernikov
A heartwarming musical trip to cold Russia ending with Rachmaninoff’s most infamous and intoxicating dance with love and death, the unstoppable Paganini Rhapsody.
![Gergely Madaras conducting](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-12/Gergely%20Madaras.jpg?itok=NURNxGDO)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Madaras
From personal crisis to blazing triumph via music that sets out to seduce and to dazzle – the rollercoaster ride that is Mahler’s First Symphony under the charismatic Gergely Madaras.
![Image of Clare Teal with microphone and trumpet beside her](/sites/default/files/styles/event_listing_small/public/images/2019-10/BBC_Singers_A%20Big%20Band%20Christmas_WebTile_WithoutTitle.jpg?itok=jFx23JoO)
BBC Singers/Palmer: Songs and Festive Favourites
BBC Singers and special guest Clare Teal perform Christmas songs and festive favourites for choir and jazz band.
Discover
![architecture detail of the barbican hall](/sites/default/files/styles/discover_small/public/images/2018-12/DSC_6059_0_0.jpg?itok=6PHs6Ol8)
Composer Focus – Episode 5: Jean Sibelius with Sakari Oramo
In the final episode, host Edward Seckerson is joined by BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Sakari Oramo to discuss his fellow countryman Jean Sibelius, and the themes of nature and Finnish national identity woven throughout his music.