News and Press

When I last saw Danny Driver, I was seventeen, and he was teaching me composition at London’s Junior Academy of Music. Now he’s a world famous pianist. “I was always slightly mystified as to why I was teaching composition, given that I was never really a composer”, he laughs, when we speak again after a gap of fifteen years. “I guess it was because I’ve always had a fascination with musical structure”.

Ahead of our feast of orchestral and choral works with composer Eric Whitacre on Wednesday 31 May at the Royal Albert Hall, journalist Hannah Nepil uncovers the Grammy Award-winner's musical style and preparations for his new work.

Skyping from his Los Angeles home at some ungodly hour in the morning, Eric Whitacre immediately turns his smooth charm on full beam. “Why don’t you start by telling me about you?” he says, flashing his Colgate smile. It takes a while to bring the composer-conductor round to the more pressing topic: his upcoming gala performance, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

We are delighted that our American Friends organisation has been granted public charity status by the Internal Revenue Service in the United States. Funds raised through the rejuvenated American Friends will provide essential support for the Orchestra’s US tours, educational activity at home and abroad and for some of the young American artists who regularly appear with the RPO.