Part of our wider classical offering at Portsmouth Guildhall.
We’re delighted to go on sale with the newest season from the wonderful Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra! These shows will be part of our wider classical series at the Portsmouth Guildhall for 2025/2026.
Book your tickets now for the opportunity to see some of the world’s most well-known classical music performed by a sensational orchestra!
BSO: Energy Unleashed
18th September 2025 – BOOK NOW
Mendelssohn’s musical postcard of a trip to the remote island of Staffa is more of a tone poem than an overture in the traditional sense. It conjures up a whole seascape including the grandeur of Fingal’s Cave, the swelling of the sea, the light on the water and the fury of the waves breaking on the monumental cliffs.
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 is built on a fully symphonic scale, with an orchestral backing that matches the solo part for interest and variety. Forcefulness, elegance and wit are perfectly balanced. The dreamlike andante is based on the simplest of materials; its effect is magical, whilst the concluding rondo echoes with the laughter of comic opera.
Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture
Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 21 K. 467
Beethoven – Symphony No. 7
Enyi Okpara – Conductor
Clare Hammond – Piano
BSO: Last Night of the Christmas Proms
22nd December 2025 – BOOK NOW
Christmas just isn’t Christmas without the BSO’s Last Night of the Christmas Proms concert! Dive head first into festivities and bring the whole family along for this musical sleigh ride. Orchestral classics, traditional Christmas numbers new and old, and a selection of Broadway and West End hits all wrapped up with a sprinkling of magic and a great big bow on top. And with Pete Harrison returning as conductor, our evening of festive fanfare is sure to be the highlight of the season!
Pete Harrison – Conductor
Jenna Lee-James – Singer
BSO: Piano Pyrotechnics
22nd January 2026 – BOOK NOW
Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from Eugene Onegin is probably the greatest concert example of this dance ever written. Generally stately, this one has flair, with large orchestral gestures and the kind of catchy tune that sticks in the mind for ages. Chopin’s gift for melody absolutely shines throughout his First Piano Concerto, which established him as a talent to be watched and launched his international fame.
It opens with a grand orchestral sweep before the piano enters with a dazzling display of technical virtuosity, culminating in a race to the end with a series of blazing scales and arpeggios both enthralling and exhausting. Mendelssohn’s impressions of the “comfortless, inhospitable solitude” of a Scottish walking holiday were the inspiration behind this stirring symphony, dedicated to Queen Victoria. Its haunting recurring theme came to the young composer as he explored the ruined chapel at Holyrood Palace.
Tchaikovsky – Polonaise from Eugene Onegin
Chopin – Piano Concerto No.1
Mendelssohn – Symphony No.3 ‘Scottish’
Marta Gardolińska – Conductor
Vadym Kholodenko – Piano
BSO: Classic FM Hall of Fame
5th March 2026 – BOOK NOW
Rossini’s bright and sunny overture preludes one of the most famous and popular of all concertos, suffused with the sun-drenched melodies and balmy atmosphere of southern Spain; its achingly beautiful slow movement is perhaps the most sublime pieces of music ever written. The Spanish passion continues with Chabrier’s dazzling rhapsody and Rimsky-Korsakov’s vibrant and colourful suite.
In contrast, Borodin’s tone poem evokes the sweeping plains of central Asia, whilst nightmarish visions abound in Mussorgsky’s dark and brooding depiction of a Witches Sabbath.
Rossini – The Barber of Seville Overture
Rodrigo – Concierto de Aranjuez
Chabrier -España
Mussorgsky – A Night on the Bare Mountain
Borodin – In the Steppes of Central Asia
Rimsky-Korsakov – Capriccio Espagnol
Tom Fetherstonhaugh – Conductor
Plínio Fernandes – Cello
BSO: Mahler’s Fifth
19th March 2026 – BOOK NOW
Haydn composed his second Cello Concerto in 1783 for Antonín Kraft, a cellist in the Esterházy court orchestra. It was for many years thought to be the work of Kraft (who presumably offered help in the writing of the solo part) before the rediscovery in 1954 of the autograph manuscript, which had lain unnoticed in a Vienna archive for over 40 years, cleared up the question of the work’s authenticity once and for all.
The journey from death to life lies at the heart of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, extremes of joy and pain contrastingly expressed more fully than ever before. Psychologically speaking, it proceeds from tragedy to triumph. Mahler paints a huge canvas of cosmic emotion, using enormous brushstrokes of sound for the largest possible gestures. From the opening funeral march the music gradually lightens, progressing through a gigantic waltz fantasy and intensely lyrical adagietto before reaching the exuberant rondo-finale. The effect is electrifying.
Haydn – Cello Concerto in D
Mahler – Symphony No. 5
Karl-Heinz Steffens – Conductor
Julian Steckel – Cello
Multibuy Discounts for the BSO Season:
– Book all 5 concerts and get 10% off. BOOK NOW
– Book any 3-4 concerts and get 5% off. BOOK NOW