Celebrating the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic

A live invitation concert from MediaCityUK, Salford, in which John Wilson conducts a wide-ranging programme of orchestral works by Eric Coates. For five decades Coates' music seemed to pervade the national consciousness, stirring the war effort and defining some of the nation's best loved radio and television programmes

This programme includes Coates’s Dancing Nights, written for Eastbourne’s 1931 music festival – it’s a delightfully carefree piece that seems to sing of the seaside. We also hear Coates’s popular London Suite – completed in 1933 when the composer was 47. Its three movements take us on a musical journey through Covent Garden, Westminster and Knightsbridge

Followed by a flute concerto by Lotta Wennakoski and, in its 90th year, the BBC Symphony Chorus joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Vaughan Williams' epic Sea Symphony

2.00pm
Eric Coates: Overture 'The Merrymakers'; The Jester at the Wedding Suite; Dancing Nights, Ballad for strings; Symphonic Rhapsody no.2; London Everyday Suite
BBC Philharmonic
John Wilson (Conductor)

3.20pm
Lotta Wennakoski: Soie - Concerto for flute and orchestra
Michael Cox (Flute)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Rumon Gamba (Conductor)

3.40pm
Vaughan Williams: Symphony no.1 'Sea Symphony'
Elizabeth Llewellyn (Soprano)
Marcus Farnsworth (Baritone)
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins (Conductor)

4.50pm
As part of New Year, New Music, Radio 3 presenters introduce some of the latest pieces of music they love