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London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
London based symphony orchestra
1
Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
English conductor, organist and composer
2
Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
English conductor
3
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestra based in London
4
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
orchestra based in Birmingham, England
5
Sakari Oramo
Sakari Oramo
Finnish conductor
6
Colin Davis
Colin Davis
British conductor
7
Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet
Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet
British conductor and impresario
8
Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux
French conductor
9
Roger Norrington
Roger Norrington
British conductor
10
John Veale
John Veale
English composer
11
Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Australian conductor
12
Mark Elder
Mark Elder
British conductor
13
Rudolf Kempe
Rudolf Kempe
German conductor
14
Jack Brymer
Jack Brymer
English clarinettist
15
John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
British conductor and cellist
16
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Czech conductor, violinist, composer and director conductor of Czech philharmony
17
Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis
British conductor
18
Gavin Sutherland
Gavin Sutherland
British conductor, composer and pianist
19
Julian Anderson
Julian Anderson
British composer and teacher of composition
20
Charles Groves
Charles Groves
British conductor
21
James Loughran
James Loughran
British conductor
22
Eric Coates
Eric Coates
British composer
23
Albert Coates
Albert Coates
British conductor
24
Edward German
Edward German
English musician and composer
25
Hugo Rignold
Hugo Rignold
British conductor
26
Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
English composer
27
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
28
Eduard van Beinum
Eduard van Beinum
Dutch Conductor
29
William Walton
William Walton
English composer
BBC Symphony Orchestra
British orchestra based in London

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Intro
British orchestra based in London
News

The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The BBC SO is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The orchestra was originally conceived in 1928 as a joint enterprise by the BBC and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, but the latter withdrew the next year and the task of assembling and training the orchestra fell to the BBC's director of music, Adrian Boult. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, who judged it the finest orchestra he had ever conducted. During and after the Second World War, Boult strove to maintain standards, but the senior management of the post-war BBC did not allocate the orchestra the resources to meet competition from new and well-funded rivals.

After Boult's retirement from the BBC in 1950, the orchestra went through a fallow period. Boult's successor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, was popular with the public but had poor rapport with his players, and orchestral morale dropped. Sargent's successor, Rudolf Schwarz, made little public impact, and although the BBC appointed high-profile chief conductors in the 1960s and 1970s – Antal Doráti, Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez and Gennady Rozhdestvensky – the BBC SO remained underfunded and could not attract enough good players to rival the leading London orchestras.

As a result of initiatives begun in the 1960s by the BBC controller of music William Glock, performing standards gradually began to rise. Under Andrew Davis in the 1990s and Jiří Bělohlávek in the 2000s, the orchestra prospered. By the second decade of the 21st century, the BBC SO was once again regarded by critics as of first-class status. From the outset, the orchestra has been known for pioneering new music, and it continues to do so, at the Proms, in concerts at the Barbican Centre, and in studio concerts from its base at BBC Maida Vale studios.