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Jurowski conducts Stravinsky (Vol. 1)
Gramophone's Top 20 Stravinsky Recordings (March 2024)
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The Firebird
The music
- Mark Simpson Piano Concerto (world premiere) (25’)*
The performers
- Edward Gardner conductor**
- Víkingur Ólafsson piano
Prepare to be spellbound by enchanting tales and a world first.
Víkingur Ólafsson: the Icelandic phenomenon who has redefined the way we hear the piano. Mark Simpson: a British composer with a boundless imagination, whose music pulses with the neon-lit energy of 21st-century urban life. Bring them together with Edward Gardner and the LPO in the world premiere of a new piano concerto, and you don’t need us to tell you that this is going to be quite an occasion. That’s just the centrepiece of a concert that begins with Dorothy Howell’s sensuous tone-poem, and ends with Stravinsky’s magical The Firebird – a fairytale of love, darkness and dazzling light.
*Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Philharmonie Essen and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
**Edward Gardner’s position with the LPO is generously supported by Aud Jebsen.
Fri 23 Oct 2026, 7.30pm
London, Royal Festival Hall
Tickets from £19.50 (including a transaction fee of £3.50)
Priority booking
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One of the great individual pianists of our time, imaginative and original in programming, thoughtful and deeply considered in performance.
BBC Music Magazine on Víkingur Ólafsson
Featuring
Edward Gardner, conductor
Víkingur Ólafsson, piano
On the LPO Label
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