Ever since its founding in 1945, the Philharmonia Orchestra has been celebrated as among the UK’s most brilliant and most respected musical ensembles. It takes up residency at the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival across two orchestral concerts, and a chamber recital showcasing its exceptional musicians – and it also performs in Dvořák’s Rusalka from Garsington Opera.

The Philharmonia has maintained its distinctive richness and high-definition sound right across its almost eight decades of music-making, under eminent music directors who have included Klemperer, Muti, Sinopoli and Salonen. At the end of his first season as current Principal Conductor, inspirational young Finn Santtu-Matias Rouvali brings two mighty works of heroism and vision to the first of the Philharmonia’s concerts at this year’s International Festival.

Outstanding South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 2015 Chopin Competition, is the soloist in Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto, one of the composer’s most dramatic but also most poetic creations. Shostakovich’s Tenth is among the composer’s most deeply felt symphonies, a savage critique of life under Stalin’s reign of terror, but also a moving love letter to a forbidden beloved.

Supported by
Joscelyn Fox