London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta stands among Britain’s foremost groups specializing in new music, with an extensive discography that reaches back through the LP period and encompasses releases on several prominent imprints.

Nicholas Snowman and David Atherton established the ensemble in 1968. Atherton held the post of music director through 1973 yet continued to lead performances for years afterward, among them the 1980 recording of Michael Tippett’s opera King Priam. Eleven Principal Players form the orchestra’s nucleus, with additional musicians engaged each season according to the works programmed. More than 450 commissions and hundreds of world premieres stand to the group’s credit. Its repertory spans a wide spectrum, embracing pieces by Luciano Berio, Harrison Birtwistle, Steve Reich, and Karlheinz Stockhausen alongside scores by Bach, Britten, and Stravinsky, as well as jazz and musical-theater selections. Andrew Burke has served as artistic director since 2007, while guest conductors such as Markus Stenz and composer Oliver Knussen have also directed the players; Knussen himself occupied the artistic directorship from 1998 to 2002.

The ensemble maintains its principal residence at London’s Southbank Centre, where it presents multiple concerts each year, among them an annual program for schools. Additional appearances take place at other British halls, and the orchestra tours regularly throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Innovative digital projects include the Clapping Music mobile application derived from Reich’s composition of the same title. More than eighty recordings from the digital era supplement its earlier LP output, issued on Deutsche Grammophon, CBS/Sony Classical, Decca, and EMI as well as on specialist labels and the orchestra’s own imprint. The London Sinfonietta appears on the 2023 NMC release Luke Bedford: In the Voices of the Living.