About the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra. Performing more than 100 concerts every season from their home, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, the Orchestra embodies the organisation’s commitment to enhancing and transforming lives through music.
The origins of the Orchestra’s concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840. Now in its 185th season, the Orchestra – comprised of 80 full-time salaried musicians – is a cornerstone of Liverpool’s vibrant cultural life and a global ambassador for the city through an extensive touring schedule throughout the UK, Asia, Europe and the US.
Domingo Hindoyan joined the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as Chief Conductor in September 2021 and has extended his contract with the Orchestra through to 2028. Together they have presented successful concerts at home and on tour in venues including Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, London’s Barbican Centre and the Royal Albert Hall. The Orchestra and Hindoyan have also achieved recording success eight internationally celebrated albums and regularly perform with world-class soloists such as Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Víkingur Ólafsson, Sonya Yoncheva, Jennifer Johnston, Paul Lewis, Sir Bryn Terfel and Nobuyuki Tsujii.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra reaches millions through recordings and streaming. Concerts are broadcast regularly through BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Medici TV – the world’s leading classical music channels – and through televised appearances including the BBC Proms and Leeds International Piano Competition. The Orchestra has over 13 million total listeners on Spotify across 180 countries.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the most active Orchestras in the UK in supporting new music, with over 300 new works premiered and commissioned in the last 20 years. In recent seasons, the Orchestra has given world premiere performances of major works by Sir Karl Jenkins, Eleanor Alberga, Grace-Evangeline Mason, Roberto Sierra, Dani Howard, James Horner, Ludovico Einaudi, Joanna Marsh, Emily Howard and Sir James MacMillan, alongside many works by Liverpool-born and Northwest-based composers including Mark Simpson, Stephen Pratt, Carmel Smickersgill, Gary Carpenter, Phoenix Rousiamanis and Nneka Cummins.
The Orchestra plays a central role in Liverpool Philharmonic’s wide-reaching learning and community engagement programmes. Musicians support young people and NHS patients through initiatives such as In Harmony Liverpool Philharmonic and Music and Health, and they also use their expertise to help nurture the next generation of musicians and artists through the Rushworth Composition Prize and Emerging Musicians Fellowship programme. Each year over 100,000 people benefit from increased access and opportunities to explore live orchestral music-making.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra received the 2024 Gramophone Classical Music Album of the Year Award in the orchestral category for a Vaughan Williams recording with Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze, making this the Orchestra’s third Gramophone Award. Other notable recognitions include: Association of British Orchestra's Award, South Bank Sky Arts Award for Classical Music, two Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, a BBC Music Magazine Award and many more.
Recordings are an important part of the Orchestra’s work. The most recent release is a collaboration with Nobuyuki Tsuji, exploring works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. In 2025, the Orchestra released Iberia, an album exploring six French works with a Spanish theme – “the RLPO firing on all cylinders with opulent tone and distinguished solos. In short, an hour and a quarter of musical sunshine” (The Guardian *****). Other releases on the Onyx Classics label include: an exploration of the melancholy and emotional depths of Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 ‘Pathétique’ & Souvenir de Florence; Venezuela! Music from the Americas which brings vivid colour in a programme of music from Venezuelan composers; a dynamic recording of Bruckner: Symphony No.4; Verismo, an album of orchestral intermezzi from Italian operas; an album of works by Puerto-Rican composer Roberto Sierra; and a disc of French works by Roussel, Debussy and Dukas – all conducted by Domingo Hindoyan. With their Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze, releases include Vaughan Williams’ complete symphonies and Job: A Masque For Dancing (also all on Onyx Classics), and with Conductor Laureate Vasily Petrenko, the complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with Boris Giltburg, and the complete symphonies of Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.
