Manchester’s musical heritage will be celebrated in a new season, The Mancunian Way, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
The new BBC Philharmonic season, to be launched in September, will feature works by composers with close links to the city like William Walton and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, alongside rising stars such as Emily Howard and Gary Carpenter. It will open with Anthony Burgess’s A Manchester Overture.
Pianist Stephen Hough
Pianist Stephen Hough, an alumnus of both the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and Chetham’s School of Music, will be Artist-in-Residence for the season.
He said: “It is wonderful to be [here]… in a city where I learned my most valuable music lessons. It always feels like coming home.”
The season will also feature a complete cycle of Richard Strauss’s 41 orchestral songs jointly presented by The Bridgewater Hall’s residents the BBC Philharmonic, The Hallé and Manchester Camerata. Nine concerts over seven weeks from January 18 to March 8 will feature his songs, performed by some of the world’s leading Straussian interpreters.
The centrepiece of the celebrations takes place on January 23 2014 when Juanjo Mena will lead the combined forces of the BBC Philharmonic and The Hallé in Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony alongside the rarely performed Festival Prelude.
