X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Royal Festival Hall


Ahead of Their Time

It was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England, on October 25, 1968 and released in 1993 on CD by Barking Pumpkin.

L. T.'s Theory of Pets

In 2001, it was released as an audiobook with the recording of King reading the story live at Royal Festival Hall in London.

London International Stamp Exhibition 1960

The London International Stamp Exhibition 1960 was held at the Royal Festival Hall from 9 to 16 July 1960.

Polyvision

Difficulties in mounting a full screening of Napoleon with three simultaneous projectors mean that a true Polyvision presentation is rarely seen, with recent exhibitions of Napoleon using Polyvision having been in December 2004 and November 2013 at the Royal Festival Hall, in December 2009 at Cité de la Musique, and in March 2012 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California.

Royal Festival Hall

Leo Beranek, an American acoustics engineer who had undertaken measurements of all of the world's leading concert halls, had identified that the interior treatment of the auditorium was absorbing too much sound.

The Festival Hall project was led by London County Council’s chief architect, Robert Matthew, who gathered around him a young team of talented designers including Leslie Martin, who was eventually to lead the project with Edwin Williams and Peter Moro, along with the furniture designer Robin Day and his wife, the textile designer Lucienne Day.

S.F. Sorrow

The same ensemble performed the show again this time to a paying public at The Royal Festival Hall in London on 19 October 2001.

William Bolcom

Its premiere at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984 was followed by performances in Ann Arbor, Chicago's Grant Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, St. Louis, Carnegie Hall, and London's Royal Festival Hall, the latter performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin.

Woven Cord

It was recorded on 29 May 1999 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, when Iona joined with the All Souls Orchestra for a unique collaboration to celebrate the band's tenth anniversary.


Alberto Nosè

He has performed throughout Europe, Asia and the United states major festivals and concert halls including the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Théâtre du Châtelet, Salle Pleyel, Salzburg's Mozarteum, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Teatro La Fenice.

Albrecht Dümling

As a scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities Dümling created an American version of the exhibition „Entartete Musik (degenerate music) in 1989/90, which travelled to more than 50 locations worldwide, including the Royal Festival Hall in London, and the Vienna State Opera.

Bo Ningen

They have since played shows and festivals throughout the UK, Europe and Japan, notably The 2011 Venice Biennale (in collaboration with artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster), which was re-created for Yoko Ono's Meltown Festival at Royal Festival Hall, they were also invited to perform at The Victoria And Albert Museum's Yohji Yamamoto Friday Late event.

Caroline Bird

She has given poetry readings at The Royal Festival Hall (with Elaine Feinstein), Latitude Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson), St Hilda's College, Oxford (with Wendy Cope), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt), Cheltenham Festival (with Clare Pollard) and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.

Dimming of the Day

The song was also covered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour in 2002 at his semi-acoustic shows in London's Royal Festival Hall; it was released on his David Gilmour in Concert DVD where he introduced the song as "this one's got nothing what-so-ever to do with me but I like it. It's by Richard Thompson and it's called Dimming of the Day."

Gerald Moore

This famed concert at London's Royal Festival Hall concluded with Moore playing alone—an arrangement for solo piano of Schubert's An die Musik.

Gilbert Briggs

His decision to book the Royal Festival Hall, recently built for the Festival of Britain, in 1954 was considered very brave, but the event was sold out in four days.

Ifield Community College

The choir, led by Patrick Allen (music educator), has performed at some of Europe's major venues, including St Mark's Basilica in Venice (2008),the Royal Festival Hall, London, Barcelona Cathedral, the Auditorium Stravinski in Montreux and a recent (June 2011) collaboration with the BBC Singers saw them performing and recording at Maida Vale Studios.

It Ain't Me Babe

Clinton Heylin reports that a Times reporter at a May 1964 Royal Festival Hall concert where Dylan first played "It Ain't Me" took the lines "no, no, no, it ain't me babe" as a parody of The Beatles' "She Loves You".

Man and Myth

In support of the albums' release Harper undertook a short, three date, UK tour, performing at the Royal Festival Hall, London, (22 October), the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (25 October) and the Colston Hall, Bristol (27 October).

Mark Shanahan

Guest conducting engagements include concerts at halls such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre and Royal Albert Hall with orchestras including the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria.

Nikolay Madoyan

Madoyan performed at the Tivoli Hall, Concertgebouw, Royal Festival Hall, Milan Verdi Theatre and the Big Concert Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Nortec Collective

Since 1999, the Nortec Collective musicians have toured throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe, Japan and Latin America, and played New York's Central Park SummerStage and Irving Plaza, as well as the Winter Music Conference in Miami, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and shows at the Royal Festival Hall in London and Elysée Montmartre in Paris.

Paris / London: Testament

Paris / London: Testament is a live solo piano album by American pianist Keith Jarrett, recorded at the Salle Pleyel, Paris and the Royal Festival Hall, London in 2008.

Patricia Leonard

Leonard returned to singing in concerts and oratorios, at venues such as Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Arts Centre, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and St. David's Hall in Cardiff, Wales.

Pedal keyboard

The keyboardist for the rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer took this idea to its logical conclusion by performing all of the first movement, and part of the second of The Three Fates on the organ of Royal Festival Hall in London.

Philip Grange

During the early 1990s Grange completed two BBC commissions, Focus and Fade for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who gave the premiere at the Royal Festival Hall in 1992 conducted by Andrew Davies, and Lowry Dreamscape, which was premiered at the 1993 BBC Festival of Brass by the Sun Life Brass Band conducted by Roy Newsome.

Richard Bissill

His Rhapsody for piano and orchestra was premiered by Philip Fowke and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.

Rose Theatre, Kingston

Kingston University has held its graduation ceremonies at the Rose Theatre since 2010 (students completing their degree in 2009); they were, for many years, previously held at the Royal Albert Hall and in 2009 at the Royal Festival Hall.

Royal Choral Society

In addition to its traditional repertoire, singers have had a chance to take part in new and unusual events, from open air concerts in Hampton Court and Glastonbury, to singing at the launch of the Queen Mary 2, participating in the 25th anniversary ceremony for the Falklands, to performing at performances for the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall.

Scouting in West Midlands

Since then it has had 34 Royal performances, appearing in events and venues such as Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, St Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Tournament, Wembley Stadium, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, London's Guild Hall, The Lord Mayor's Show, Horse Guards Parade, Coventry Cathedral, the Spalding Flower Parade, London's Easter Parade, and the Jersey Battle of Flowers.

Tal Rosner

His video for In Seven Days, Piano Concerto with Moving Image, composed by Thomas Adès, was premiered by the London Sinfonietta at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 28 April 2008.

The Full English

The album was released 6 May 2005, the same day Van der Graaf Generator (a band co-founded by Judge Smith) did a reunion concert in the Royal Festival Hall in London.

The London Chorus

In October 2000, the choir changed its name to The London Chorus, performing its inaugural concert, Delius's A Mass of Life, at the Royal Festival Hall.

Václav Hudeček

Since his London debut he has appeared all over the world on the most prestigious stages (Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Suntory Hall, Osaka Festival Hall) with the best world's orchestras (Berliner Philharmoniker, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, NHK Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as on the world festivals (Osaka, Salzburg, Istanbul, Perth, Helsinki).


see also

Gemini Suite

This was Gemini Suite, five long movements inspired by the members of Deep Purple, and performed live in September 1970 at the Royal Festival Hall with The Light Music Society Orchestra (the album of the concert was issued in 1993 as Gemini Suite Live).