Described in The Sunday Times as, "The country's, perhaps the world's, leading modern music ensemble" (February 1998), the London Sinfonietta plays today's music to the highest possible standard. Formed in 1968 by David Atherton and Nicholas Snowman, it performs work by the brightest new names alongside music by established figures, a range of work requiring a great deal of flexibility. A London Sinfonietta performance can consist of anything from one or two players to a full orchestra, although there is a core group of sixteen principal players. These virtuoso performers combine their own international solo careers with the work of the London Sinfonietta.
Under the leadership of its Music Director, Oliver Knussen, and its Artistic Director, Gillian Moore, the ensemble has entered its 32nd year with a combination of exciting programming and capacity audiences, and Knussen has been received as, "the best possible choice as music director for the London Sinfonietta. Without posturing or patronising he can make an audience feel as if they are in on something" (The Times, October 1998). Because of this authority as a conductor, coupled with his comprehensive knowledge and understanding of 20th-century music, The Guardian has called him, "one of the most important advocates for new work anywhere in the world" (October 1998).
The London Sinfonietta's UK base is the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank. Here, and in concert appearances throughout the country and abroad, the ensemble presents the best new British and international music. It has played a vital role in the creation of many of the most successful and important pieces of music written in the last 32 years, performing over 125 specially commissioned new works, and giving the first British performances of more than 250 others. The London Sinfonietta has also mounted several of its own major festivals celebrating the work of some of the century's musical giants ñ including Schoenberg, Webern, Britten, Tippett, Stravinsky, Ravel and Varése ñ and the ensemble's former Artistic Director, Michael Vyner, in collaboration with Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, founded Towards the Millennium, an annual celebration of the arts from each decade of the 20th Century. State of the Nation, an annual London Sinfonietta festival focusing on emerging UK composers, has become a fixture in the UK's concert calendar, and the ensemble's New to London series, which introduces new music by major figures, continues in 2000. Dozens of critically acclaimed recordings, such as Thomas Adès's Living Toys (a 1998 Gramophone Award winner), and Görecki's Symphony No. 3 (which has sold over a million copies), have helped make this music available to the widest possible audience.
Consistently ahead of its time, the London Sinfonietta has long been at the cutting edge of music education. Gillian Moore pioneered the UK's very first orchestral Education Officer's position with the ensemble in 1983. Although all of the country's major orchestras and several abroad have now followed this lead, the ensemble's education work, now under the creative leadership of Fraser Trainer, remains absolutely integral to its mission. Working with people from all areas of the community (including prisoners, people with disabilities and senior citizens, as well as children, students and concert-going adults throughout the UK) the London Sinfonietta is still developing its education programme and forging new paths, including pioneering use of the internet.