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Founded in 1904 and therefore the oldest of the city's symphony orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra became world-renowned for recordings that date back to early gramophone records in 1912. Amid decades of diverse classical programming that followed, including performances for radio and TV, the orchestra also became known for its appearances in numerous film scores, including the Star Wars series. The LSO also tours and first visited North America in 1912 (narrowly avoiding passage on the Titanic).

The ensemble's direct antecedent was the Queen's Hall Orchestra, formed in 1895 for conductor Henry Wood's series of Promenade Concerts. The summer series was so successful that a series of weekly Sunday afternoon concerts was established the same year. The orchestra, however, had never become a permanent group; its members could and often did send other musicians to substitute for them at concerts. In 1904, Wood attempted to end this practice, prompting 46 members to leave and form their own orchestra.

The London Symphony Orchestra was organized as a self-governing corporation administered by a board selected by the players. They arranged for the great Hans Richter to conduct the inaugural concert, and continued to engage a variety of conductors, practically introducing the concept of the guest conductor to the London musical scene. Soon, though, the title and post of principal conductor was established for Richter. The LSO's connection with the BBC goes back to 1924 when Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted the orchestra in the premiere broadcast performance of his Pastoral Symphony. It was the unofficial orchestra in residence for the BBC until the formation of the BBC Symphony in 1930 and continued to broadcast concerts and provide background music for many BBC productions. Other conductors most associated with the orchestra's first few decades include Edward Elgar and Thomas Beecham. During World War II, Wood was welcomed for a series of concerts.

The War took its toll on orchestra membership as it had the general populace, and a concurrent drop in private funding led to increased reliance on the state arts council. This eventually led to structural reorganization in the 1950s, resulting in increased professional standards and the abandonment of profit-sharing; players became salaried employees. The revamped orchestra made only its second tour of the United States in 1963 (the first had been in 1912), and in 1964 embarked on its first world tour. In the mid-1960s the city of London broke ground for the Barbican Arts Centre, intended as the LSO's permanent home. The building was an architectural and acoustic success, and since 1982 has provided the orchestra the solid base it lacked during the first 70-plus years of its existence. The venue opened under principal conductor Claudio Abbado, who took over for André Previn in 1979.

In the meantime, the orchestra made its Star Wars debut, performing John Williams' score for the original 1977 film. While the organization had recorded its first film score in 1935 (H.G. Wells' Things to Come) and appeared in such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and The Sound of Music, Star Wars won three Grammys, an Academy Award, and a BAFTA, among many other accolades, sold over a million copies in the U.S. and over 100,000 in the U.K., and endures as a touchstone in modern film music. The LSO went on to record music for the franchise's entire first two trilogies as well as films like 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1993's Schindler's List, 1997's Titanic, and select installments of the Harry Potter series.

During the tenure of Colin Davis, who was named principal conductor in 1995, the LSO established its own record label, LSO Live. Dvorák's Symphony No. 9, recorded at Barbican Centre in 1999 and released in 2000, bears catalog number 0001. Their 2000 recording of Berlioz's Les Troyens won two Grammys in 2002, and Verdi's Falstaff took home the Best Opera Grammy in 2006. In 2007, Davis took the position of orchestra president, its first since Leonard Bernstein's passing in 1990, and Valery Gergiev became principal conductor.

Also known for crossing over into rock, jazz, and Broadway, among other categories, they followed hit recordings such as Symphonic Rolling Stones and Gershwin Fantasy (with Joshua Bell) with albums like 2017's Someone to Watch Over Me, which had them accompanying archival recordings of Ella Fitzgerald. ~ Marcy Donelson, Joseph Stevenson & Corie Stanton Root

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, or Lady Rattle if you are so inclined, became a popular and critically celebrated figure in Europe before the age of 30. She was touted as the chief competitor to Cecilia Bartoli (although there is no evidence of a personal rivalry between the two). Her area of primary expertise is 18th century music, particularly Bach, but she has also had success in more Romantic opera and song repertory. Kožená's voice has been variously described as "sweet" and "fiery and melting," depending on her repertory; more constant attributes include her vocal agility and sense of drama, which are both highly regarded.

Kožená was born on May 26, 1973, in Brno, in the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia). She initially studied at the Brno Conservatory, then with Eva Blahová at the College of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Even before her graduation in 1995, she was winning major prizes in the Czech Republic and internationally, the most significant being top honors at the sixth International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995. She spent the 1996-1997 season as a member of the Vienna Volksoper. In 1997, Kožená made her recording debut with an album of Bach Arias on the Archiv Produktion label. In 1998, she made her debut at the Drottningholm Festival as Paride in Gluck's Paride ed Elena. Her Bach recording caught the attention of the Deutsche Grammophon label, which signed her to an exclusive recording contract in 1999 that resulted in annual releases. In 2000, she debuted at the Châtelet in Paris as Gluck's Orpheus and at the Vienna Festival as Nero in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. She appeared as Cherubino in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2001. During this time, Kožená was also an active recitalist throughout Europe but was less known in the U.S., despite performances in San Francisco and at Carnegie Hall. Participation in Metropolitan Opera productions of Mozart and Janácek operas boosted her American reputation.

Kožená has been featured mainly in Baroque and Classical music, although she has also ventured into the Romantic era and 20th century Czech songs. As a recitalist, she has performed and recorded Britten, which has endeared her to the nationalistic British press. An even greater honor came to Kožená in 2003 with the success of her recording of Romantic French opera arias, not to mention her presence in the 2002 centenary production of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra Comique: she was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2004, she was named the Gramophone Awards "Artist of the Year." Kožená married conductor Sir Simon Rattle in 2008, and they have three children together. Since her marriage, she has also been known as Lady Rattle. In 2009, Kožená's recording of Julietta fragments by Martinu won a Gramophone Award. The following season, she toured with the ensemble Private Musicke in a program based on her album Lettere Amorose. Kožená began a fruitful relationship with the PentaTone Classics label in 2017, which quickly resulted in several albums, including Il Giardino dei sospiri and Soirée: Magdalena Kožená & Friends in 2019. Her 2023-2024 season included recitals, concerts, and operatic appearances in countries around the world, and saw her release the album Folk Songs (with Rattle conducting the Czech Philharmonic) in 2023, followed by a recording of Handel's Alcina (with Marc Minkowski leading Les Musiciens du Louvre) in 2024. ~ James Reel & Keith Finke

Tenor Andrew Staples has specialized in British works on his recordings, but in concert, he has appeared in a great variety of music. He has been a fixture of concert scenes in Britain in the 2010s and 2020s, also appearing often in continental Europe and the U.S.

Staples was born in London on August 19, 1979. Like so many other English singers, he had his first disciplined musical experiences in a cathedral choir, that of St. Paul's. After his voice broke, he sang with the Rodolfus Choir in the late '90s. He earned a music scholarship to Eton College (in North American terms, a prep school) and then, in 1998, earned another scholarship, this one to King's College, Cambridge. After receiving his degree in music there, Staples moved on to the Royal College of Music in London, where his teacher was Ryland Davies. He was the school's first recipient of its Peter Pears Scholarship.

Staples landed a role with the British Youth Opera as Ferrando in Mozart's Così fan tutte in the early 2000s and quickly found himself in demand for tenor roles and parts from Bach to Mozart and Beethoven. One of his first major appearances outside Britain came at the 2003 Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, where he played Aret in Haydn's Philemon und Baucis under the baton of veteran conductor Trevor Pinnock. Staples' debut with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden came as Jacquino in Beethoven's Fidelio. Staples made his recording debut on the Albion label in 2008 with a group of 20 early Ralph Vaughan Williams songs entitled Kissing Her Hair. That same year, he appeared on the album The Sky Shall Be Our Roof, a collection of songs from Vaughan Williams' operas.

Concert appearances have taken Staples as far afield as Japan, where he performed Mozart's Requiem with the Kanazawa Orchestra. In New York, he sang in the U.S. premiere of John Tavener's The Veil of the Temple. Strongly interested in British music of the 20th century, Staples has performed several Britten works, including the Serenade for tenor, horn, and strings, with Andrew Manze as conductor. In 2017, Staples was tapped to replace ailing tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the title role in Daniel Barenboim's recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. The following year, he appeared on a Chandos recording of Elgar's The Music Makers and The Spirit of England. In 2022, Staples returned on a Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra recording of Britten's Les Illuminations, conducted by Daniel Harding. ~ James Manheim

Baritone Florian Boesch is one of Austria's foremost lieder interpreters, especially identified with Schubert's Winterreise, D. 911. He also has a large repertory of operatic roles and concert music with orchestra.

Boesch was born on May 17, 1971, in Saarbrücken, West Germany, but grew up in Austria. He had his first singing lessons from a grandmother, Ruthilde Boesch, who was a professional singer. In 1997, he enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, studying with Robert Holl. He made his debut as a lieder singer in 2002 at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, Austria, and the following year, his operatic debut at the Zurich Opera House in Switzerland as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, K. 620. Since then, Boesch has gained renown in both art song and opera. He is especially noted as a Schubert interpreter, performing Die Winterreise in cities as far afield as New York and Tokyo, as well as at Wigmore Hall in London. Boesch made his recording debut in 2008 with an album in the Naxos label's Schubert: Romantic Poets series.

Often accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau, he has also performed Schubert's other song cycles as well as a variety of other song literature. As an opera singer, Boesch has performed at such world-class venues as the Vienna Staatsoper and Volksoper, the Los Angeles Opera, and Oper Köln, where he appeared in the lead role in Berg's opera Wozzeck in 2011. Boesch has a long record of concert performances, appearing at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Konzerthaus in Vienna, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, among other major halls. Comfortable in early music, he has appeared in historically oriented performances led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt on tour in Japan. In addition to operatic releases, Boesch has appeared on more than 15 solo and ensemble albums. He has recorded for the Onyx, Hyperion, and Linn labels, among others, focusing mostly on song repertory. In 2020, he took the bass role in Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Hob. 21/2, on a new release in the Alpha label's Haydn 2032 series of the composer's complete works. In 2023, he moved to Linn, joining Martineau on a recording of Schumann's Dichterliebe, Op. 48, and Kerner Lieder, Op. 35. ~ James Manheim