Season Preview: Your guide to the arts in 2023

The London Symphony Orchestra has announced that it will return to Australia in April and May 2023 under the leadership of Sir Simon Rattle in what will be his final season as LSO Music Director.

The orchestra will perform two concerts – including works by John Adams, Ravel, Debussy and Mahler – in each of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with a third program, featuring Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, exclusive to Sydney as part of the celebrations surrounding the Sydney Opera House’s 50th anniversary year.

The LSO made its Australian debut in 1966 and last visited Australia in 2014 for a series of concerts under then Chief Conductor Valery Gergiev. Limelight critics on that occasion commented “What an evening! What an orchestra!” and “The LSO’s performance could not have been bettered anywhere on the planet.”

LSO Sir Simon Rattle

The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Barbican Hall, June 2022. Photo © Mark Allan

The 2023 tour will be only the orchestra’s fourth trip Down Under in its 120-year history. Rattle will be making only his third...