THE BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA CELEBRATES ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY

BBC Radio 2 is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the famous BBC Concert Orchestra with an 11-part series of "Friday Night Is Music Night". From Friday 20 January until late in March, Ken Bruce is hosting a well-deserved tribute to one of the most famous radio orchestras in the world, broadcast on Radio 2 at 8:00pm.

Hailed as "a worthy instrument" presenting a "brilliant new era of entertainment music", they made their first broadcast on 11 September 1952. But their story began 20 years before, when they were known as the BBC Theatre Orchestra (conductor Leslie Woodgate), whose main role was to provide incidental music for radio plays, but who also gave light music and opera concerts.

In 1949 for a few years they were renamed the BBC Opera Orchestra, conducted by Stanford Robinson. The series of eleven programmes features a different archive show each week, with performances from light music giants Sidney Torch, Vilem Tausky, Robert Farnon, Eric Coates and others. There are also performances with famous singers and soloists who have appeared with the orchestra, and interviews with players and conductors.

Today the BBC Concert Orchestra is widely praised for its regular broadcasts on radio (both Radio 2 and Radio 3), its appearances at prestigious events such as the BBC Promenade Concerts, and its continually growing number of superb compact discs.