Royal Melbourne Philharmonic

Royal Melbourne Philharmonic
Orchestra
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic logo
Founded	1853 (1853)
Principal conductor	Andrew Wailes
Website	www.rmp.org.au

Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (RMP) is a 120-voice choir and orchestra in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1853, and is reportedly Australia's oldest surviving cultural organisation.

Although when it was founded the RMP Orchestra was Melbourne's premier orchestra, many of the orchestra's earlier members merged with the then fledgling Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and it lost its separate identity. The RMP has since reestablished its own orchestra and regularly performs both with and without the RMP Choir. Members of the choir are unpaid volunteers.

The RMP has participated at a number of important historical events, including the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall in 1870, the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, the Great Centennial Exhibition of 1888, the opening of the first Parliament of Australia at the Royal Exhibition Building in 1901, the 1956 Summer Olympics, and the Centenary of Australian Federation celebrations in 2001.

The RMP has performed Handel's Messiah at least once every year since 1853, a world record for an unbroken sequence of annual performances of this oratorio.

It has presented the Australian premieres of such works as Mozart's Requiem, Bach's St Matthew Passion, Handel's Israel in Egypt and Jephtha, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Vivaldi's Gloria, Dvořák's Stabat Mater, Elgar's The Kingdom, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast and others.