The
BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the
British Broadcasting CorporationThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's five
radio orchestraA radio orchestra is an orchestra employed by a radio network in order to provide programming as well as sometimes perform incidental or theme music for various shows on the network. In the heyday of radio such orchestras were numerous, performing classical, popular, light music and jazz...
s. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra.
The parent ensemble of the orchestra was the BBC Theatre Orchestra, which was formed in 1931 and based in
BedfordBedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
. The orchestra also did opera work and was occasionally billed as the BBC Opera Orchestra. In August 1949, the ensemble was formally renamed the BBC Opera orchestra. In January 1952, the BBC Opera Orchestra was disbanded and the BBC Concert Orchestra was formed from players formerly from the BBC Opera Orchestra.
The BBC Concert Orchestra is the BBC's most populist ensemble, playing a mixture of classical music,
light musicLight music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and had its heyday during the early to mid part of the 20th century, although arguably it lasts to the present day....
and popular numbers. Its primary role is to produce music for radio broadcast, and it is the resident orchestra of the world's longest running live music programme,
Friday Night is Music NightFriday Night is Music Night is a long running live BBC radio concert programme featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra, broadcast most Fridays on BBC Radio 2 at 8.00pm. It is the world's longest-running live music radio programme....
on
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
. Until 1972, the orchestra was based at the Camden Theatre. From 1972 to 2004, the orchestra performed regularly at the
Golders Green HippodromeGolders Green Hippodrome was built in 1913 by Bertie Crewe as a 3000-seat Music Hall, to serve North London and the new tube rail expansion into Golders Green....
. It also appears regularly at the
Royal Festival HallThe Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
and
The PromsThe Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
in London, as well as venues around the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. As well as its performances on BBC Radio 2, it also performs regularly on
BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
, and is a core part of the BBC Proms and Electric Proms. As well as light classical music, it also plays
pop musicPop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
,
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
,
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
,
operettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
and much of the popular repertoire previously the mainstay of the disbanded
BBC Radio OrchestraThe BBC Radio Orchestra was a broadcasting orchestra based in London, maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1965 until 1991....
. It links, from time to time, with the
BBC Big BandThe BBC Big Band, originally known as the BBC Radio Big Band is a British big band run under the auspices of the BBC. Widely regarded as the UK’s leading and most versatile jazz orchestra, the band broadcasts exclusivley on BBC Radio, particularly on BBC Radio 2's long running series Big Band Special...
for concerts and broadcasts.
Gilbert Vinter served as its first principal conductor, and Stanford Robinson, the former principal conductor of the BBC Opera, was a regular guest conductor with the ensemble.
Barry WordsworthBarry Wordsworth is a British conductor.From 1989 to 2006, Wordsworth was principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, and now holds the title of conductor laureate. From 1990 to 1995, Wordsworth was music director of the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden. He began his second tenure in that post in...
, principal conductor from 1989 to 2006, now holds the title of Conductor Laureate.
Jonny GreenwoodJonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
was named the orchestra's composer-in-residence in 2004. In August 2010, the orchestra announced the simultaneous appointments of
Keith LockhartFor the baseball player, see Keith Lockhart Keith Lockhart , to Newton Frederick and Marilyn Jean Woodyard Lockhart, is an American orchestral conductor....
as its seventh principal conductor, with immediate effect, and of Johannes Wildner as principal guest conductor.
The orchestra has recorded commercially for the
NMC RecordingsNMC Recordings is a British recording label which specialises in recording works by living British composers.-History:The composer Colin Matthews founded NMC in 1988, with financial assistance from the Holst Foundation. NMC is an abbreviation for "New Music Cassettes", which refers to the intended...
label.
Principal conductors
- Gilbert Vinter
Gilbert Vinter was an English conductor and composer, most celebrated for his compositions for brass bands....
(1952-1953)
- Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
(1954-1956)
- Vilem Tausky
Vilém Tauský CBE was a Czech conductor and composer.-Life:Vilém Tauský was from a musical family: his Viennese mother had sung Mozart at the Vienna State Opera under Gustav Mahler, and her cousin was the operetta composer Leo Fall.Tauský studied with Leoš Janáček and later became a repetiteur at...
(1956-1966)
- Marcus Dods
Marcus Dods , was a British musician and composer. He was educated at Rugby School, King's College, Cambridge where he won a choral scholarship, and later graduated from the Royal Academy of Music.Dods was assistant music director in the Rank Organisation 1947-1951, where he assisted Muir Mathieson...
(1966-1970)
- Ashley Lawrence
Ashley Macdonald Lawrence, born Hamilton, New Zealand, on 5 June 1934, died Tokyo on 7 May 1990 was a New Zealand conductor mainly active in the UK and Germany, and particularly associated with ballet.-Career:...
(1970-1989)
- Barry Wordsworth
Barry Wordsworth is a British conductor.From 1989 to 2006, Wordsworth was principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, and now holds the title of conductor laureate. From 1990 to 1995, Wordsworth was music director of the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden. He began his second tenure in that post in...
(1989-2006)
- Keith Lockhart
For the baseball player, see Keith Lockhart Keith Lockhart , to Newton Frederick and Marilyn Jean Woodyard Lockhart, is an American orchestral conductor....
(2010-present)
External links