We're turning 40 next year and here's how we're planning to celebrate with our 2025/26 season at the Southbank Centre. We've called it Fantastic Symphonies.
Redefining the meaning of the term “big bash” we’ve got so much lined up that it’s going to last until 2027. Over two seasons we’ll be packing in much of the repertoire that has been central to the OAE’s story over the last 40 years – featuring major works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz and Brahms – as well as our relish for pushing the boundaries of historically informed performance.
The Orchestra gave its first official concert at Oxford Town Hall on 26 June 1986. Leading up to the anniversary date, will be four concerts embodying the range of the OAE’s work – a mini festival, if you will. But every concert in the season (and beyond) will be filled with music and guests that celebrate all that the OAE is.
On the day of the anniversary, Friday 26 June, the OAE will return to Oxford Town Hall for a gala evening that will tell the story of the OAE through its music and toast the people that made it possible.
But what have we got lined up at the Southbank Centre for you…
We have been ambitious in our planning! We'll feature special friends from our roster of conductors and artists who've established meaningful connections with the Orchestra, each offering their unique artistic vision to our stage. We'll reflect fondly on our musical past by re-visiting programmes that were highlights of previous years, whilst, looking ahead, we are forging exciting new relationships to venture even wider in terms of repertoire challenges over our next forty years.
Annette Isserlis - viola player and "season curator"
Friends Old and New
John Butt will open the season in spectacular style with Handel’s Solomon (12 October) with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston in the title role and soprano Nardus Williams taking on three roles: Solomon’s Queen, First Harlot and Nicaule, the Queen of Sheba. Sir András Schiff explores Haydn’s musical personality (27 November) with the Keyboard Concerto No. 11 and Symphonies nos. 39 and 102.
February will be a bumper month for fans of Mozart and Beethoven. Katherine Spencer has put together a concert based around two of Mozart’s most enduringly popular pieces, the Clarinet Concerto and Eine kleine Nachtmusik alongside music by Mozart’s close friend Michael Haydn and the ‘Spanish Mozart’ Juan Arriaga, who was born exactly 50 years after Mozart (1 February – and touring in the UK), Robin Ticciati will conduct the final trilogy of symphonies (26 February), and in between Adam Fischer returns with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony alongside the Fourth (8 February).
We’re really looking forward to working for the first time with Johanna Soller, the artistic director of the Munich Bach Choir, who will direct Bach’s St John Passion (29 March)
For our ‘mini festival’ to round off the season, we renew our burgeoning friendships with conductors Václav Luks in Haydn’s The Creation featuring the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment (27 May) and Maxim Emelyanychev who will direct a ‘reconstruction’ of the programme from the final concert that Brahms is believed to have attended (24 June) with good friend of the OAE Steven Isserlis as soloist in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto.
There’ll be a warm welcome for Sir Simon Rattle, another of our principal artists, who returns with a double bill of Berlioz symphonies including Harold in Italy and Symphonie fantastique (10 June).
…and there’s a very special community opera (more on that below).
There’ll be more to come when two more of our principal artists will join in the celebrations as they flow over into the 2026/27 season. In Autumn 2026, Sir Mark Elder will direct a concert based on Bizet’s incidental music for L’Arlésienne whilst in Spring 2027 Vladimir Jurowski will bring together one of the largest ensembles we’ve ever assembled for Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
I thought what would I miss the most with those instruments now and it was those pieces... what a great thing to have these two extraordinary symphonies by Berlioz together... it's going to be a blast!
Sir Simon Rattle
Young people at the heart of our work
We’ll present our latest piece to be created in collaboration with schools and communities with Life of the Sea (3 June). Initially created to tour to primary schools, this will be a newly expanded version of the show combining core pieces from the OAE’s repertoire with newly created pieces that incorporate both primary and secondary school students, including from Acland Burghley School in Camden where we have our base.
Our education programme is built on partnerships and creating projects that support the students’ interests, needs, learning and development. I love the music we play. We don’t own it! Sharing that love is really important and opening the doors to say ‘this can be yours too – it’s for everyone and anyone who wants it. Let’s play with it.’ That’s the reason I love being involved in the OAE’s education work.
Cecelia Bruggemeyer, double bass and chair of the Players Artistic Committee
Investing in the talent of the future
The current cohort and alumni of our Rising Stars of the Enlightenment will feature prominently throughout the season. In addition to her appearance in Solomon Helen Charlston will be a soloist for St John Passion; Hugo Hymas will be the tenor soloist in Solomon; Florian Störtz will appear in Solomon and as Christus in St John Passion; and Nick Pritchard will be the tenor soloist in The Creation.
You're invited!
In addition to all of the above there will also be the return of our popular alternative concert series, Bach, the Universe and Everything at Kings Place, and The Night Shift in the pub.
All the details for our Southbank Centre season will be published here on our website on 23 April. Tickets for Autumn concerts go on general sale from 29 April and tickets for the Spring concerts (February onwards) will be available later this year.
Priority booking for Friends and Patrons – including exclusive access to the whole season – begins on 23 April.
If you’re not already signed up, become a friend or Patron today.
In those days it was a bit Wild West in the best possible way. To do this you had to be very unusual… and that I found completely heaven.
Sir Simon Rattle
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