Prokofiev, Mahler and much more: Santtu-Matias Rouvali launches his second season with Philharmonia Orchestra

Santtu-Matias Rouvali & Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall

The young Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali became chief conductor of the Philharmonia last season, and he makes a strong contribution to the orchestra's 2022/23 season. Rouvali will be conducting 10 concerts in London, opening the season with a pair of concerts featuring Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5  and he closes the first half of the season in January 2023 with  violinist Nemanja Radulović in a programme including Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Alongside these Rouvali conducts music by Beethoven, Korngold, Shostakovich, George Walker, John Adams and Anna Clyne. Clyne is the season's featured composer and her works feature in several concerts and she will be curating a programme of work by women composers for a free Music of Today event.

The season's featured artist is cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason who will be performing both of Haydn's Cello Concertos at a concert in September conducted by Marin Alsop alongside music by Richard Strauss and Ravel. Still in a cello kind of mood, Norwegian conductor Tabita Berglund makes her Philharmonia debut, with her former cello teacher Truls Mørk, in one of Prokofiev’s last completed works, the Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra. A revised version of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto from 1933/38, Prokofiev dedicated the revised work to Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered it in 1952 with Sviatoslav Richter conducting (the only instance of Richter conducting). Cellist  Alisa Weilerstein takes the title role in Strauss’s Don Quixote with Jordan de Souza, who conducted the Philharmonia in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at Garsington Opera last year, making his Royal Festival Hall debut.

RVW's 150th anniversary is not neglected and the orchestra joins the Bach choir for an all-RVW programme including the Sea Symphony.

As well as the season at the Southbank Centre, there are concerts at The Anvil, Basingstoke, Bedford Corn Exchange, De Montfort Hall, Leicester, Windsor Castle,  New Wimbledon Theatre, The Marlowe, Canterbury, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at Royal Albert Hall with Toby Purser conducting and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, plus concerts at the Wimbledon International Music Festival.

Full details from the Philharmonia website.