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The Salle Pleyel

The Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra

Starting in September 2006, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra will resume its residence at the Salle Pleyel. It will play twenty concerts for this season, most often on Fridays.

France Musique will be recording all of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra season’s concerts at the Salle Pleyel.

A flexible instrument

The Philharmonic Orchestra was created in 1976 in order to provide Radio France with an instrument suitable to a wide variety of programs. The originality of this orchestra of 141 musicians resides in its great flexibility: it can be broken down into several ensembles for grand orchestras or instrumental ensembles alike.

From 1984 to 2000, the history of sixteen years of collaboration with Marek Janowski was marked by work done on the Germanic repertoire. The Orchestra also devotes a significant part of its activity to creation, expanding its repertoire with about fifteen new works each year.

International influence

Myung-Whun Chung © Philippe Gontier

The musicians of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and their musical director Myung-Whun Chung have been working together since May 2000. This collaboration allowed several in Asia, United states of Europe.

Special guests

These past seasons, the musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra have performed works from the classical repertoire with Ton Koopman, Paul McCreesh, Marc Minkowski and Christopher Hogwood. They have welcomed performer conductors such as Sir Yehudi Menuhin and Christian Zacharias, composer conductors like George Benjamin, Krzysztof Penderecki, Luciano Berio, Thomas Adès and Peter Eötvös, personalities as diverse as Sir Neville Marriner, Armin Jordan, Eliahu Inbal, Kent Nagano, Neeme Järvi, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vladimir Fedosseiev, and conductors of the new generation like Paavo Järvi, Mikko Franck, Philippe Jordan, Kazuchi Ono, Manfred Honeck and Kiril Karabits. In 2005-2006 the Philharmonic Orchestra welcomed Pierre Boulez, Valery Gergiev, Tugan Sokhiev, Fabrice Bollon, Jean Deroyer, and Gustavo Dudamel for the first time.

Opening up to new audiences

The recording activity of the Philharmonic Orchestra with an existing catalogue of fifty or so titles that continues to grow steadily, expresses a will to reach wider audiences. This public awareness approach leads the Orchestra to developing an in-depth pedagogical program for several years with a special interest to the young public.

The Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra
Myung-Whun Chung, musical director

www.radiofrance.fr