This season, we’ve explored and celebrated composers who found themselves at odds with their societies, composers who faced exile and adversity and transformed the experience into pure life force, and other great creative spirits faced prejudice simply because of who they were. Our Music Director Vasily Petrenko conducted a series of concerts at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall that included Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, Florence Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. We were privileged to welcome guest artists such as Yunchan Lim, Bruce Liu, Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, and Maxim Vengerov.
Want to dive deeper into the series? Listen to our specially-curated playlists to discover more music by the composers featured in the Lights in the Dark series and the pieces they were influenced by.
You can also read our guide to the art created for Lights in the Dark.
Read on to look back on the series as it happened...
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
On Sunday 26 January we opened the season with Music Director Vasily Petrenko to a packed Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre. Featuring Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.5, performed by Boris Giltburg (stepping in for Paul Lewis), the theme of the evening was music that pushed at the boundaries of established conventions, hailing new and rapidly-changing eras in both music and society.
"A showcase for an orchestra on top form." The Guardian
Bruce Liu plays Rachmaninov
On Sunday 23 March we returned to the Royal Festival Hall for the second concert of Lights in the Dark. The programme featured three émigré composers who moved to the United States between the wars; Erich Korngold, Béla Bartók and Sergei Rachmaninov. Between Korngold's The Sea Hawk, Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, these three very different pieces demonstrated the variety of experiences felt and trajectories charted in a new and changing musical world. We were joined by the fantastic pianist Bruce Liu, winner of the XVIII International Chopin Competition.
"From the start this was a gripping collaboration, nothing routine or indulgent from a forthright traversal that gained much from Liu’s technical wizardry, delicacy of tone and crystalline articulation, all delivered by his hunched posture over the keyboard... Petrenko presided over an ideal account, with gratifying wind solos, and enabling rising tensions to develop naturally." Bachtrack
Shostakovich’s Symphony No.7
On Sunday 27 April, we returned to the Royal Festival Hall to take part in Southbank Centre's Multitudes festival, which saw orchestras join forces with various different artists working in forms such as dance, spoken word and film. A three-channel video installation by filmmaker Ilya Shagalov and art director Kirill Serebrennikov accompanied the orchestral performance, juxtaposing Shostakovich's wartime 'Leningrad' Symphony with powerful and surreal visuals. In the first half, we were joined by baritone Roderick Williams OBE for Kurt Weill’s Four Walt Whitman Songs.
"A blistering, multi-hued interpretation of Shostakovich’s cinematic masterpiece." The Guardian ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Yuncham Lim plays Chopin
On Tuesday 20 May Lights in the Dark came to the Royal Albert Hall. Global superstar pianist Yunchan Lim performed Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 to a sold-out auditorium before the Orchestra performed Strauss' vast Alpine Symphony.
"Magic happened, however, in the first of two encores, the Variation 13 from the Goldberg Variations, where, in that strange alchemy that can occur at this venue, the space shrunk to the size of a salon and Lim hypnotised us all." The Times
Sibelius with Maxim Vengerov and Stravinsky's The Firebird
On Sunday 25 May, we returned to the Royal Albert Hall to perform with the legendary Maxim Vengerov, who played Sibelius' Violin Concerto in a programme that also included Strauss' Don Juan and Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird.
"So many dazzling little splinters of orchestral magic could start to pall, but Petrenko kept up the music's momentum unerringly." The Telegraph
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4
On Wednesday 25 June, we returned to the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre for the final concert of the series. We were joined by Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, who performed Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, in a programme that also featured Dorothy Howell's Lamia. The evening, and the season, concluded with Tchaikovsky's turbulent but ultimately triumphant Symphony No.4.
Thank you for joining us in our 2024–25 season at Southbank Centre and the Royal Albert Hall. We hope you continue your journey with us in our 2025–26 Season with Music Director Vasily Petrenko as we perform Mahler's First, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall, Messiaen's Turangalîla and Scriabin's Symphony No.3 at Southbank Centre, and more.