The London Symphony Orchestra has announced plans for the first season under its new music director, Sir Simon Rattle.
Sir Simon takes up his new post in September 2017 and, in his first few weeks, he and the orchestra will present a ten-day musical celebration to mark his appointment. An opening concert of all-British music will be broadcast live to personal headsets in the Barbican Sculpture Court in what the LSO has dubbed a ‘Silent Symphony’, and other projects for the first week include the creating an opera in a day with children and young people, and a chance for the public to go behind the scenes as Sir Simon rehearses the orchestra’s performance of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust. The BBC will broadcast live throughout the opening ten days, including three live symphonic concerts from the Barbican Hall.
In November, the LSO will celebrate the life and work of Leonard Bernstein. For this, Marin Alsop will conduct two concerts of Bernstein’s symphonies, as well as a family concert that will recreate one of Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts from the 1960s. The Bernstein celebration will culminate in a production of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, conducted by Rattle himself.
Then, in 2018, the LSO will present a new staging of Stockhausen’s Gruppen – which requires 120 musicians to be divided into three orchestras – in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern.