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.
Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts
Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts
The accounts state that the charity delivered a consolidated net surplus of £541,452 for the year ended 31 August 2025, with total reserves increasing to £8,797,836. The trustees report that cashflow at year-end was materially stronger than at the start of the year, supported by Arts Council England funding and Orchestra Tax Relief.
Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.
What the accounts disclose
Reserves policy: three months of overhead costs and no less than £750,000 (held: £2.3m)
“The Philharmonia Orchestra aims to have accessible free reserves to cover at least 3 months of overhead costs at any one time and no less than £750,000.” — page 11
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Related-party transaction: Subsidiary trading profits
“Rite Digital Limited gifts its profits to the charity making a nil gain nil loss each year. At the year-end Rite Digital owed Philharmonia Limited £68,952 (2024 - £8,395).” — page 60
“The Company had a related party relationship with MMSF by virtue of its trustees. At the year-end MMSF owed Philharmonia Limited £80,850 (2024 – £91,324).” — page 60
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Related-party transaction: MMSF debt
“Rite Digital Limited gifts its profits to the charity making a nil gain nil loss each year. At the year-end Rite Digital owed Philharmonia Limited £68,952 (2024 - £8,395).” — page 60
“The Company had a related party relationship with MMSF by virtue of its trustees. At the year-end MMSF owed Philharmonia Limited £80,850 (2024 – £91,324).” — page 60
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Trading subsidiary: Rite Digital Limited
“Rite Digital Limited, Philharmonia Limited’s fully owned trading subsidiary Company, made an operating surplus of £NIL”
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Accounts audited by MHA. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.
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)
Cost of raising funds
£640k
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 (3.8%) (benchmarks).
- 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
Is PHILHARMONIA LTD financially healthy?
Per its FY2025 accounts: The accounts state that the charity delivered a consolidated net surplus of £541,452 for the year ended 31 August 2025, with total reserves increasing to £8,797,836. The trustees report that cashflow at year-end was materially stronger than at the start of the year, supported by Arts Council England funding and Orchestra Tax Relief. Its FY2025 accounts were audited by MHA.
Who funds PHILHARMONIA LTD?
Funders whose own accounts filings name PHILHARMONIA LTD as a grant recipient include THE ERANDA ROTHSCHILD FOUNDATION, DAVID AND ELAINE POTTER FOUNDATION, THE E C SOSNOW CHARITABLE TRUST, THE JOHN S COHEN FOUNDATION, THE AUSTIN AND HOPE PILKINGTON TRUST.
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 ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA LIMITED.
Side by side with its peers
Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.