We catch up with Venezuelan hot-shot Rafael Payare, recently appointed Chief Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra, who tells us why everyone ought to come to his LSO debut concert on Thursday 9 October…

Imagine I don't know a lot about classical music. How would you describe what a conductor does?

Almost two years ago LSO Discovery was approached by a team from Big Mountain Productions who were developing a programme working with a number of recovering addicts, using music.

Big Mountain Productions had encountered LSO Discovery’s work and wondered whether its inclusive way of working could be used to inspire and support the participants throughout the project, culminating in an orchestral performance with the London Symphony Orchestra.

The third blog in our series exploring the Members of the LSO who served in World War I tells the story of violinist Roy Robertson.

The story of Roy Robertson shows one of the major difficulties that we have encountered whilst researching this subject - the use of names other than the ones they were given at birth. There are several Members in the list above whose first name is different to what they would use in official documents - sometimes even the surname is different.

In the second of our series of blogs remembering the service of LSO members in World War I we tell the story of horn player Harry (Harold) Jackson.

Among the names listed in the minutes of the AGM of 27 July 1917 was the name H Jackson. We knew very little about H Jackson - not even his first name. A convention of the times was to refer to men only with their first initial, particularly in official documents such as concert programmes and our register of share certificates for the Orchestra. So although we knew from concert programmes from the time that H Jackson played the French horn, we could find no reference at all to his full name.