20-05-2025
RLPO/Hindoyan review — an orchestra and conductor in their element
Piercing audience whooping-up was much in evidence as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic ended this riotous Barbican concert, the last stop in its spring tour of England and Ireland. And I fully understood why.
The wind section alone of the RLPO, so immaculately tailored, so pungently coloured, must be the best in all of the UK's top orchestras. Its players were at their finest in the second chunk of the first of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, the chunk centred on that suavely heart-tugging alto saxophone solo (thank you, Carl Raven).Another good reason for the whoops was the Venezuelan Domingo Hindoyan, described by a passing audience member as 'a total dude' and now comfortably in his fourth year as the orchestra's chief conductor.
He's clearly in his