11 Facts About BBC Symphony Orchestra

1. BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform again with the BBC Symphony Orchestra this week, and on that occasion she will be presented with the Emerging Talent Award by the Critics' Circle.

2. BBC Symphony Orchestra remains the principal orchestra of the Proms, giving about a dozen concerts each season, including the first and last nights.

3. BBC Symphony Orchestra welcomed the fact that the orchestra's new principal guest conductor was David Robertson, a new-music expert and a protege of Boulez.

4. BBC Symphony Orchestra was principal guest conductor of the orchestra from 1995 to 2000, and was the first past principal guest conductor of the orchestra to be named its chief conductor.

5. BBC Symphony Orchestra held the post until 2000, the longest-serving chief conductor since Boult.

6. BBC Symphony Orchestra refused to join the staff of the BBC, and insisted on remaining a freelance, taking numerous external engagements to the detriment of his work with the BBC SO.

7. BBC Symphony Orchestra rapidly became equally unpopular with the BBC music department, ignoring its agenda and pursuing his own.

8. BBC Symphony Orchestra offended the BBC SO players by demanding that they all stand up when he came on to the platform—which they firmly declined to do.

9. In 1927, the BBC Symphony Orchestra took over the responsibility for the Promenade Concerts, widely known as "the Proms".

10. The BBC Symphony Orchestra attempted to stop its contracted players sending deputies to rehearsals and even to concerts, but was unsuccessful.

11. BBC Symphony Orchestra was originally conceived in 1928 as a joint enterprise by the BBC and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, but the latter withdrew the next year; and the task of assembling and training the orchestra fell to the BBC's director of music, Adrian Boult.