Simon Rattle Residency, Southbank Centre and the Barbican

If classical music has any household names, Simon Rattle is surely one of them. Rattle made his name leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra during the 1980s and 1990s, transforming it from a provincial orchestra into one of global standing. Since 2002, he’s been the chief conductor and artistic director at the Berlin Philharmonic – among the most illustrious job titles in the classical world. He is celebrated for the vigour of his approach and the variety of his repertoire.
It all started with Mahler. Aged 11, Rattle went to see a performance of the Second Symphony in Liverpool, conducted by George Hurst – and that, he says, “is where the seed was sown”. This has become one of Rattle's signature pieces so it’s hardly surprising that this towering, turbulent work will conclude his residency in London with the Berlin Philharmonic, between 10 and 15 February 2015. 
The residency marks Rattle’s 60th birthday, and the programme will be made up of works that are particularly close to his heart. Alongside the Mahler – which will feature the soprano Kate Royal and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena (Rattle’s wife) – he’ll be performing a complete cycle of Sibelius’s seven symphonies, to honour the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. Sibelius has long been out of favour in Germany, and Rattle has taken on the challenge of reviving his reputation there (before his tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestra had never played the Third Symphony ). Rattle is known, too, for his championing of modern composers, and the programme will also include the work of Helmut Lachenmann, a pioneer of “musique concrète instrumentale”.