Bournemouth SO pips Cleveland to the crown!

Beating the big beasts of the orchestral jungle, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has been voted the winner in Bachtrack’s World’s Favourite Orchestra 2014 poll. Throughout September, readers have been submitting their votes, with 11,613 taking part. 383 different orchestras in over 40 different countries were nominated. Last year’s victors, Cleveland Orchestra, narrowly missed clinging on to their crown, polling just 89 votes less than Bournemouth.

Orchestras around the world have been harnessing social media to engage their fans. During the campaign, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra used Twitter and Facebook, as well as sending out an email to its supporters. The Mouth carried a story and – in the closing hour of the poll – Chief Conductor Kirill Karabits issued a last minute video appeal to push them over the winning line.

Alex Segrave, the BSO's Digital Officer, said yesterday “The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is delighted to have been voted the World’s Favourite Orchestra 2014. Our thanks to all who have voted for us in the last month, it is a testament to the loyalty of our supporters from the 10,000 square miles across the South and South West of England that we regularly visit.

“From the smallest to the biggest scale performance, from engaging new people to live music-making to those who have loved music all their lives, our Orchestra has the passion and flexibility to inspire audiences in a way that truly celebrates the role that culture, and in our case music, has and must always have in enhancing and transforming lives.”

The BSO took a staggering 14.94% of the vote, with the Cleveland Orchestra in second place with 14.18%. Of those orchestras making the top 20 for the first time, the success of the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, coming in sixth place with 5.78%, could well be down to its impressive BBC Proms debut this summer and a high profile CD release. Orchestras sharing a city or region with competitors inevitably suffered a split vote; in London, the London Symphony fought off its many rivals to remain the UK capital’s favourite. The Philadelphia Orchestra retained a top 10 finish for the second year in a row.

Once again, the voting shows Bachtrack’s huge international reach, with 47.11% coming from North America and 28.87% from mainland Europe and just 18.73% coming from the UK.

Alison Karlin, Director of Bachtrack, said: “We’re thrilled that Bournemouth Symphony have won the 2014 award as they deserve to for a really great campaign.”

For a full list of the top 20, click here.

Bachtrack is the largest classical concert finder online, with over 12,000 live listings of concerts, opera and dance around the world, and one of the largest classical reviews sites with around 200 reviews published each month. The site was founded by Alison and David Karlin in December 2007.

World's Favourite Orchestra ran for the first time in 2013 when Cleveland Orchestra won the title with a giant share of the vote. The campaign was created to help orchestras around the world interact with their fans in a fun way at the start of the orchestral season. The successful orchestras use WFO to increase awareness of their orchestra to thousands of people who don’t already know them both in the region they perform and for the top few, all around the world.