Organisation
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Goals
Resilient communities
The London Philharmonic Orchestra (opens in a new window), a Lambeth-based symphony orchestra resident at the borough’s Southbank Centre, has announced its 2025/26 Season including a major focus on music highlighting man’s relationship with the earth and nature.
This season explores the profound capacity of classical music to inspire environmental consciousness under the theme Harmony with Nature; a reminder that protecting the natural world is not only a moral imperative but also a cultural one, echoed and elevated through music’s enduring voice. Exploring the different elements of nature – water, forests, mountains, wildlife and more – reflected in music, the season includes Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony and works by Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Elgar and Dvořák; masterpieces of an era that saw nature as a mirror of human emotion. Closer to our own time, voices as diverse as Duke Ellington, John Luther Adams, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Terence Blanchard have all found an unquenchable source of creative energy in the processes of nature.
Throughout the season, the force of nature can be felt across varied works, including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and The Firebird Suite, Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony and Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals, which will be accompanied by enchanting animations by Sandra Albukrek.
Concerts across the season open with thought-provoking contemplations on our and other planets with, Dvořák’s In Nature’s Realm and his storm-swept Symphony No. 7, UK premieres of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Contested Eden and Chinary Ung’s Water Rings, and the world premiere of Robert Laidlow’s Exoplanets. A very special programme will see Terence Blanchard and his quintet join the LPO for a rare UK appearance to perform the UK premiere of Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina, his tribute to the resilience of hurricane-stricken New Orleans. This is paired with Duke Ellington’s reflection on man, God and nature, The River Suite.
Harmony in Nature is woven through every element of the concert on 21 March 2026 that opens with John Luther Adams’s Become River, followed by the European premiere of Clarice Assad’s earth-inspired concerto Terra: Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra and ending with an intimate portrait of changing seasons in the home of tango with Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, which will be accompanied by live dance. Another nature-focused programme on 8 April 2026 opens with CATAMORPHOSIS, full of the brooding, volcanic power of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s native Iceland, and concludes with Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony No. 6.
Throughout the season, the LPO will expand its sustainable practices, partner with local environmental organisations, and present speakers, writers, activists and thinkers on this vital, timely topic.
