PHILHARMONIA LTD

Registered charity 250277 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA, THE PHILHARMONIA

The charitable objectives are the advancement of public education through the promotion and support of the art of music, particularly by the promotion and encouragement of orchestral music and the relief of povertyand distress amongst playing members of any symphony orchestra for the time being maintained by the Charity. We achieve this by maintaining a symphony orchestra of the highest quality.

Objects

2.1 THE OBJECTS OF THE CHARITY ARE THE ADVANCEMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION THROUGH THE PROMOTION AND SUPPORT OF THE ART OF MUSIC (INCLUDING OPERA, MUSIC, DRAMA, BALLET AND ALL ART FORMS CONSISTING IN WHOLE OR IN PART OF MUSIC) PARTICULARLY BY THE PROMOTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC (“THE OBJECTS”).2.2 THE RELIEF OF POVERTY AND DISTRESS AMONGST PLAYING MEMBERS OF ANY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOR THE TIME BEING MAINTAINED BY THE CHARITY AND THE DEPENDENTS OF SUCH PERSONS.

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Southwark, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity achieved a consolidated net surplus of £541,452 for the year ended 31 August 2025, with total unrestricted funds carried forward amounting to £4,652,218. The trustees report that free reserves of £2,311,316 exceed the stated policy target of at least £750,000, and the independent auditors confirmed that the financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis with no material uncertainties identified.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by MHA. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Philharmonia (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Santtu-Matias Rouvali — Principal Conductor (source)
• Marin Alsop — Principal Guest Conductor (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/08/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~5.2 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 5.8% of total income — above the median for charities its size (3.7%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• DAVID KEITH PICKARD · trustee of 1 other charity
• David Charles Aitman
• Emma Lisney
• Fiona Margaret Cornall
• Howard Davies · trustee of 1 other charity
• James Samuel Buckle
• Johanne Hudson
• Laurence Alexander Rolton
• Luke Whitehead
• Nick Bishop
• Paul Stoneman
• Robert Looman
• Soong Choo
• Susan Hedger
• Terence Rhodes Sinclair

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Australia · Austria · Belgium · Brazil · China · Colombia · Finland · France · Germany · Greece · Iceland · Isle Of Man

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with LONDON PHILHARMONIC CHOIR.

• LONDON PHILHARMONIC CHOIR income £95k
• ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA LIMITED income £11.8m
• THE TONBRIDGE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY income £59k
• THE BIRMINGHAM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA income £37k
• YORKSHIRE PHILHARMONIC CHOIR LIMITED income £60k
• PLYMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA income £32k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.