Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France

The musicians of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and their Music Director, Myung-Whun Chung, have been working together since May 2000. Their partnership has been marked by tours in Asia, in Europe (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, as well as at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the Proms and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) and at Carnegie Hall in New York.

The Orchestre Philharmonique was created in 1976 in order to provide Radio France with a suitable orchestra for a wide range of programmes. The uniqueness of this orchestra of 141 musicians lies in its extreme flexibility: it can be divided into several groups that adapt to very diverse repertoires. It is thus able to offer over fifty original programmes each season for both full orchestra and instrumental ensembles. The Orchestre’s sixteen years of collaboration with Marek Janowski were characterized by work on the Germanic repertoire, including the first Parisian performance since 1957 of Wagner’s Tetralogie, the first complete cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies performed in Paris, and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. The orchestra also devotes a large part of its activity to new compositions, with approximately fifteen new works each year.

 

During the past few seasons, the member’s of Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France have honed works from the classical repertoire with Ton Koopman, Marc Minkowski and Christopher Hogwood. They have welcomed musician/conductors such as Sir Yehudi Menuhin and Christian Zacharias, composer/conductors such as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez and Peter Eotvos, and a wide range of guest conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Armin Jordan, Eliahu Inbal, Kent Nagano, Ivan Fischer, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Leonard Slatkin. They also continue to work with a new generation of conductors including Paavo Jarvi, Mikko Franck, Philippe Jordan, Kazuchi Ono, Manfred Honeck and Kirill Karabits, the Orchestre’s young associate conductor.

  

Highlights of the past season include a Richard Strauss cycle directed by Myung-Whun Chung at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, participation in the Peter Eötvös ‘private domain’ series at the Cité de la Musique, and performances of  ‘Tannhaeuser’ at the Theatre du Chatelet.

 

The orchestra’s recording activity remains strong, and it currently has a catalogue of over fifty titles. The Orchestre Philharmonique records with Myung-Whun Chung for the Deutsche Grammophon label and, following albums featuring works by Messiaen and Beethoven, in June 2004 they will release a disc uniting Schubert’s ‘unfinished’ symphony with Schumann’s piano concerto featuring Martha Argerich.