Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate, has written a poem to celebrate the Royal Philharmonic Society’s bicentenary. 

The poem forms part of the RPS’s Notes into Letters programme, aimed at uniting music and words. You can read it here: Philharmonic, by Carol Ann Duffy

The poem draws the society’s celebratory year to a close, which has seen 122 events, the commissioning of 24 composers (more than in any year since the RPS’s foundation), and more than a quarter of a million pounds raised through a Bicentenary appeal to support young musicians and composers.

Carol Ann Duffy is the second poet laureate to have been commissioned by the PRS: in 1970 it commissioned Cecil Day-Lewis to write a poem marking the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. 

John Gilhooly, RPS chairman, described it as: "a fitting end to a year that has seen both distinguished artists and young musicians coming together to celebrate – to quote RPS founding musicians - 'the love of their art'."