News and Press

Married on Saturday and full driving licence gained on Monday – one thing's for sure, Sonia Sielaff doesn’t waste time, but then who would blame her? For two and a half weeks last year this sub-principal clarinettist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was in a medically induced coma, during which she underwent a liver transplant operation that required her to remain in hospital for a further two months, recovering.

“It was around the end of May that I noticed my abdomen was distended,” she tells me. “A scan at Lewisham Hospital revealed I had fluid in my abdomen and lungs. It was flushed out but almost immediately I became very ill.”

RPO Resound has recently returned from China, where the Director of Community & Education, Workshop Leader Tim Steiner and a team of five RPO musicians delivered a bespoke five-day professional development programme for the staff and players of the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra (SZS). More than 40 members of SZS took part in a series of workshops, seminars and live projects aimed at building their practical knowledge and understanding of how participatory outreach work, education and community engagement activity can augment their concert programme, develop new audiences and support capacity building across the organisation.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is greatly saddened to hear of the death of André Previn, one of the most versatile and respected musicians of the past century.

André Previn was appointed as the RPO’s first Music Director in 1985, a position he held for three years until 1988, when he became the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor whilst simultaneously holding the role of Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  Previn’s artistic partnership with the RPO which lasted until 1992, was celebrated both on the stage and in the TV and recording studios, providing a golden age of benchmark recordings for all the major labels, including William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast which launched the RPO’s own RPO Records label in 1986.