BBC Philharmonic - Fountain of Youth

For the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra's season opener, an assembly of composers who, by embracing pain, find solace, redemption, and clarity.

Composer in Residence for the 2025/26 season, Julia Wolfe’s LAD makes for a spectacular opening: nine bagpipes, processing through the Bridgewater Hall, playing drones that stretch and bend with a thrilling agony. (‘There’s something really destructive and terrible about [LAD],’ the Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe has written, ‘but it also has a redemptive element too.’) Rejuvenation is a clearer aim in her Fountain of Youth, a musical tsunami where blocks of orchestral sound obliterate all in their path.

Sergei Prokofiev approaches the question of rejuvenation from a different perspective: composed just before he ended 17 years of exile from post-revolutionary Russia, his Violin Concerto No. 2 finds a simpler, more precisely expressive style; still, expect ravishing melodies and rustic punch, as superstar violinist Augustin Hadelich brings his incredible artistry to one of Prokofiev’s most celebrated works.

We end with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, orchestral music’s ultimate embrace of fate. This is maximalist music – huge emotions and passionate melodies, painted on an epic musical canvas.