Accompanied by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and a nine piece band, George Michael began the Symphonica Tour in Prague last night (Monday 22 August). See what the UK media had to say:

 

***** - The Guardian

 

**** - Daily Mail

 

**** - The Independent

**** - Daily Express

**** - Evening Standard

“To loud cheers, Michael performed songs from this almost 30-year career, including Kissing a Fool and it Really Doesn’t Matter, which he has never sung live before” - The Telegraph

“Michael restores faith in a magical voice” – The Independent

“A great artist back at the top of his game and loving it” – The Express

The tour will see him perform in front of over 390,000 between now and December.

The UK leg of Symphonica includes dates in Cardiff, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester, as well as London’s Royal Albert Hall, Royal Opera House and Earls Court. Click here for tour dates

It's the news his millions of fans across the world have been hoping for. This summer George Michael makes his eagerly awaited return to the stage with Symphonica: The Orchestral Tour, his first European dates since the widely acclaimed 25Live tour concluded in Copenhagen in August 2008.

Further details of George Michael’s very special black-tie charity evening at the Royal Opera House have been announced. The show in London will take place on Sunday 6th November as part of his European ‘Symphonica’ Tour to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation's  newly created Elizabeth Taylor Memorial Fund.

Earlier this Summer at an international press conference at the Royal Opera House, George Michael announced  his long awaited return to the stage with ‘Symphonica: The Orchestral Tour’, opening at the Prague State Opera House on 22nd August. News echoed across the globe and tickets have been snapped up in record time.

All net proceeds from this special charity evening will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation (registered charity 1017336) to support its global work helping people infected or affected by HIV.

George Michael is renowned for his philanthropic work and has been a long standing admirer of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. In 1991, Elton John and George Michael joined forces and duetted on "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" which became a number one smash hot across the world and benefitted the London Lighthouse AIDS hospice and the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity, whilst Michael also sung backing vocals on Nikita. In addition George supports many other organisations which help people living with HIV/AIDS, including Healing Circle Holistic and Children with Aids. He also previously supported the "Red Hot and Dance" AIDS charity album by contributing three brand new songs, including “Too Funky” for which all proceeds went to the Red Hot Organisation.

Elton John, Founder of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, comments, “George has been a patron of the Foundation since it’s inception and has been a much valued supporter over the years, as well as a dear friend.  This is an incredible and generous gesture. I thank George from my heart for doing this. His is an amazing talent, and this is a fantastic gift he is making to people affected by HIV”

George Michael adds, “I have seen how HIV can affect people lives, how it can destroy families and communities.  The way that the Elton John AIDS Foundation gets help to the people around the World who need it most – often the most marginalized communities - really spurred me on to do something.  I also really wanted to honour the inspiring efforts that Elizabeth Taylor made – especially in the early years of the epidemic  - and to mark her passing this year  I am delighted to announce that the Elton John AIDS Foundation will use all the proceeds from this show to create and manage a new fund in her memory – THE ELIZABETH TAYLOR MEMORIAL FUND.

Where, then, do we start with George Michael? Everybody knows George Michael. Or at least they think they do. He's a global icon, an international artist of the highest order who has sold over 100 million albums in a world where Germany's population is 82 million; the United Kingdom's is 62 million and Australia's is 23 million. He's topped charts from Austria to Australia. He's sold-out stadiums from Tokyo to Tampa. He re-defined popular music with his debut solo album, 1987's Faith and went on to build a groundbreaking, substantial and enormously popular body of work.

Perhaps, though, the real starting point is Radlett, a commuter town of 60,000 souls, north-west of London, where some scenes of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange were filmed. It's where young Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (born 25 June 1963) and his loving, tightly bound, part Greek-Cypriot, part English family moved from their original North London home. George and his best friend, fellow Bushey Meads Comprehensive student Andrew Ridgeley, would do as teenagers do, think about being pop stars and dream of making it big: "I wanted to be loved," admitted George. "It was an ego satisfaction thing". Even so, the pair of dreamers understood that it wasn't going to happen. These things just don't happen.

Yet, as the world knows, these things did happen. As Wham!, the duo who would define the early-'80s. From their first single, 1982's Wham Rap, to their last, 1986's The Edge Of Heaven/Where Did Your Heart Go, they sold 25 million records, they kept each other's friendship and they departed in a blaze of glory before 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium on June 26 1986. Wham! never got old and never lost their exclamation mark, but along the way, George won the first of his three Ivor Novello Songwriter Of The Year awards in 1985. They had two US Number 1 singles and a Number 1 album - titled Make It Big in honour of their Bushey Meads dreams - they became first western band to play China and George began his long but mercifully mostly undocumented commitment to charity work with a performance on Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas and by donating all Wham! royalties from their Last Christmas/Everything She Wants single to Ethiopian famine relief.

Even when Wham! were in their pomp and George was contributing to his friend and sparring partner Elton John's Nikita and Wrap Her Up, it was plain that George's destiny was solo and that his new, more mature songs were too worldly, too adult to fit into the format of good-time duo. He'd already dipped a toe in solo waters in 1984 with a song he'd written as a 17-year-old ("a very precocious lyric!" he quipped) while riding the number 32 bus home as a teenager. Careless Whisper (credited to Wham! Featuring George Michael in the US) not only featured one of the great lines in popular music, "guilty feet have got no rhythm", but showed there was more to George Michael than the instant joy of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Young Guns (Go For It). Careless Whisper charged to Number 1 in America and topped the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Ireland, South Africa, Switzerland and the UK, amongst others.

Just to prove Careless Whisper was no fluke, before Wham!'s final hurrah, George's second solo single, A Different Corner, emerged. It topped the British charts and went Top 10 in the US, Australia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Ireland and Switzerland. As someone once almost said, you didn't have to be a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing.

His first post-Wham! offering wasn't even a solo effort. Instead, hot on the heels of duetting with Smokey Robinson at the world's leading soul venue, Harlem's Apollo Theater, George became the first white male vocalist to duet with Aretha Franklin, whom he anointed as "the best female soul singer in the world". The magical, life-affirming, Grammy-winning I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) swept its way to Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, Australia, Ireland and Holland.

Then, shortly after George contributed vocals to ex-Shalamar chanteuse Jody Watley's self-titled album came the iconic, ground-breaking Faith, which would eventually top charts in the UK, US,  Australia, Ireland and Holland before going 10X Platinum in the US and 5X Platinum in the UK. Released in October 1987 and recorded earlier that year at Puk, in Judland, somewhere in the Danish countryside (it was a tax year thing; George just yearned for home) and Sarm West in West London, it surprised everyone who suspected that for all Wham!'s obvious style, craft and swagger, they might have been a little shallow. Recently and rightly acclaimed as the British Thriller, at one sitting, it sold over 10 million copies in the US alone (it's found its way into almost 20 million homes worldwide), transformed George Michael from global teen idol to global adult superstar - as a result, coining one of his least favourite phrases "doing a George Michael" - and paved the way for the extraordinary body of work to come.

It's the one written (except for his childhood and current friend David Austin's sterling contribution to Look At Your Hands), produced and arranged by George himself. It's the one which stayed atop the American charts for 12 weeks and spawned four of his six number one US singles: Faith itself, Father Figure, One More Try and Monkey. Just for good measure, the Irish and Number 1 I Want Your Sex reached Number 2 and Kissing A Fool Number 5.

And Faith was the album which made the Michael mantelpiece sag with awards: a Grammy for Album of the Year; three American Music Awards - Favourite Album (Soul/R&B); Favourite Male Vocalist (Soul/R&B) and Favourite Male Vocalist (Pop/Rock) - plus an MTV Award for Father Figure (Best Direction) and two Ivor Novello Awards for Songwriter Of The Year and International Hit Of The Year.

There was storm-in-a-teacup controversy vis-a-vis his ode to monogamy, I Want Your Sex ("I expected the BBC to ban it," George admitted, "I became the antichrist for a couple of weeks"); there was funk in the clattering drug abuse saga Monkey; there was the horror of spousal abuse in Look At Your Hands and there was extraordinary beauty in the Canadian Number 1 Kissing A Fool, Father Figure and the Irish Number 1, One More Try, which remains George's pick of an extraordinary bunch. There was even an anti-Margaret Thatcher political aspect to Hand To Mouth. Amazing as it seemed then, amazing as it seems now, he was still only 24. Not that he was especially happy in himself: "one of the reasons the record was so successful," he mused in 2010, "is that people can recognise the loneliness."

More instantly, the success of the Faith album enabled the legendary Faith tour, which covered 137 dates in 19 countries from February 1988 to June 1989, was choreographed by Paula Abdul and took in a three-song covers set at the Nelson Mandela Freedom Concert at Wembley. George played Wham! and solo material, plus the occasional cover. The magnificent spectacle helped ensure that nobody would sell more records than George in the United States in 1988. "I never met anyone who was a reluctant star," he admitted, just as enthusiastically as he admitted to his insatiable ambition. The prestigious Best British Male Brit was his and he contributed to both his bassist Deon Estus's album Spell and the mysterious Boogie Box High, led by his cousin Andros Georgiou.

Aside from winning a career-encompassing Video Vanguard award at the MTV Europe Video Music Awards, George took 1989 off, "to sort my head out". Head sorted, George unveiled his second solo album, the Beatles-influenced Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 in September 1990. Oh and the title, wasn't a plea to listen to George without prejudice: he really wasn't that self-absorbed.

This time though the mood was darker and more adult still, but that didn't stop his British audience from sending it to Number 1 and the Americans to Number 2, behind MC Hammer. No shame there: the voluminously trousered rapper was a fine sprinter, but George was always a marathon runner.

The hit singles flowed, a Best Album Brit kept that Michael mantel groaning and the videos featured everything but, in keeping with his desire for peace and privacy, George Michael himself. The man may have made the music, but he always insisted that music sold on its own merits and, as if to cement his artistic evolution, he was the subject of an edition of Britain's most prestigious arts programme, the South Bank Show.

In keeping with his desire to do things differently, when George returned to the stage in 1991, the Cover To Cover tour was exactly what it implied on the tin: a dizzying, cover-heavy romp, which featured Stevie Wonder's Living For The City, Adamski's Killer, Leonard Cohen's Suzanne and perhaps most notably, Elton John's Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me. The pair's live duet of Elton's song (recorded on the Faith tour) was another British, American, French, Dutch and Swiss Number 1. Proceeds went to the Aids hospice London Lighthouse and the Rainbow Trust children's charity.

Soon, another charity, the Red Hot Organisation, enlisted George's ever-willing assistance. Their Red Hot + Dance album - in aid of Aids research - chiefly featured remixes of songs by such artists as Madonna and Lisa Stansfield, but George gave the project three brand new songs, including the aptly titled Too Funky. Ever game, he even appeared in the song's video, albeit briefly. The single was another US/UK/Austria/Australia/France/Holland/Sweden/Switzerland top tenner and naturally the royalties went to the Red Hot Organisation.

A debilitating court case with his record label Sony was on the horizon, but he wasn't finished yet with live chart toppers or charities. 1993's Five Live EP featured heroic versions of Queen's Somebody To Love (with Queen themselves) from the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and Papa Was A Rollin' Stone, the video of which won an MTV Europe's International Viewers' Choice Award. Proceeds went to the Freddie Mercury Phoenix Trust. Later that year, on December 1, World Aids Day, George headlined the Concert Of Hope at Wembley Arena in front of the Princess Of Wales.

George re-emerged in November 1994, at the MTV European Music Awards in Berlin, with the stunning Jesus To A Child, his first self-penned song in three years. Despite its seven-minute, radio-unfriendly length, it was yet another British chart topper (just for good measure it was an Australian, Irish and Norwegian Number 1 too)and yet another US Top tenner.

His absence had only made the public's hearts grow fonder. In January 1995, Careless Whisper was voted London's favourite record of all time and George Michael himself as Best Male Singer by listeners of Capitol Radio, alongside an Outstanding Contribution To Music Award.

Once he'd formally left Sony and signed to Virgin (excluding the US) and DreamWorks (US only), May 1996 saw Older, the third George Michael album: "It's my first completely honest album," he explained of what at the time (ie pre Spice Girls) was the Virgin label's fastest seller. Musically adventurous and lyrically brave, it spawned a record six British Top 3 singles and that year he would win Best British Male at both the MTV Europe Awards and the BRITs; his third Ivor Novello Songwriter Of The Year Award and he would retain his Capital Radio's Best Male Singer title. Fastlove would win the International Viewers' Choice Award at the MTV Video Music Awards and the Older album would spend 147 weeks in the British charts, which, of course, it topped, as it did those in Austria, Australia, Norway, Netherland and Sweden.

Somehow he found time to contribute Desafinado (Off Key), a duet with the legendary Astrud Gilberto to the Red Hot + Rio charity album and to remind everyone (not least himself) that he could sparkle in a smaller setting as well as a stadium, he played intimate gigs for Radio 1 before an audience of just 200 and for MTV for 500 lucky fans.

1997 saw a second Best British Male Brit Award, a reissue of Older which included a second disc, Upper, comprising four remixes, two newish songs and an interactive element. Oh, and there was a Wham! best of, If You Were There. Good, weren't they?

And speaking of best ofs, the following year saw Ladies And Gentlemen, The Best Of George Michael. Divided into two discs, For The Heart and For The Feet, it was partly a comprehensive resume of George's career and partly a helpful rounding up of some of the non-album gems. Its three new tracks included Outside with its laugh-out-loud video, and a turbo-charged run-through Stevie Wonder's glorious As, alongside the splendid Mary J. Blige. The collection went 8X Platinum in Britain, a nation swooned at George's droll performance on the chat show Parkinson and he topped Capitol FM's Hall Of Fame for the eighth time, as well as the Norwegian charts.

Another year, another curveball. George's appearance at the NetAid charity show in October 1999 included a version of Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney's Brother Can You Spare A Dime. Come December, the depression era classic featured again on Songs From The Last Century, the George Michael covers album, co-produced with Phil Ramone. A labour of love, it comprised George's takes on some of his favourite songs, including Sting's Roxanne, Passengers' (aka U2) Miss Sarajevo, plus standards such as Secret Love and You've Changed and a radical re-imagining of David Bowie's Wild Is The Wind. A low-key treat for fans from which no singles were culled, it nevertheless went double platinum in the UK and Top 10 in Germany.

The new century saw George step back from his relentless schedule. Even so 2000, saw appearances at the Equality Rocks charity concert at Washington's RFK Stadium, at the time the largest-ever concert in aid of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender awareness and at Luciano Pavarotti's Pavarotti And Friends gathering in Modena, where George and his host's duet on Brother Can You Spare A Dime later appeared on the Pavarotti And Friends For Cambodia And Tibet album. They also covered Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me. And all wasn't quite quiet on the recording front: George joined Whitney Houston to re-record her album track If I Told You That.

2001 was professionally quiet, but 2002 found George signed to Polydor records, at Number 1 in Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Spain and back in the UK Top 10 with the super-funky Freeek!, his first self-penned single since 1998's Outside. Joseph Kahn's sci-fi tinged, sexually charged video was a boundary-pushing, sense-tingling feast which featured George as businessman, scientist, cowboy and leather-clad dog-handler. There was more fun in the shape of the satirical Shoot The Dog, which sampled The Human League and, via its animated video, poked fun at George Bush, Tony Blair and David Seaman. Its message though could hardly have been more serious. At the time, to the derision of some, George was a lone, brave voice in the wilderness, speaking out against the Iraq war. Almost a decade later, it's clear he was right all along.

2003 was spent crafting the eagerly-awaited Patience, but there was still an appearance on the War Child charity album (and subsequently on Top Of The Pops), with a sombre version of Don McLean's anti-war The Grave.

After eight years - several musical lifetimes - without an album of original material, even diehards wondered if George still had the magic of yore, even though he had re-signed to his label of yore, Sony. They needn't have worried.

The joyful single Amazing served notice that another treat was on its way. So it proved and Patience hurtled to Number 1 in Britain (and Denmark, Germany, Poland and Sweden amongst many others). Having retreated from the American market since Older, George appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show, invited her crew into his lovely home and performed Amazing, Father Figure and Faith for her. The album reached Number 12 there. George was back. He couldn't have been more back.

Blame It On The Sun a duet with Ray Charles, appeared on Charles's posthumous album, 2005's Genius And Friends. It was followed by George Michael: A Different Story, a documentary directed by Southan Morris which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February, at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in May and released worldwide in December. There were contributions from Boy George, Mariah Carey, Noel Gallagher, Sir Elton John, Andrew Ridgeley and Sting. It took us back to his childhood, back to Wham!, back to Faith and looked to the future. Like George himself, it was honest. Too honest some might say. The man himself? He loved it.

Patience had everything but an accompanying tour. 2006 was the moment to put that right once Tony Bennett's Duets: An American Classic album was concluded by a duet with George on How Do You Keep The Music Playing? Starting in Barcelona in September 2006 and finishing in Copenhagen in August 2008, two and a half million people in 27 countries (including his first American shows in 17 years) saw the universally acclaimed 25 Live tour (titled as a celebration of his 25 years at the musical coalface) at arenas, and stadia. It including the first gig at the renovated Wembley Stadium and a more intimate charity show for British nurses at the Roundhouse, Camden Town, North London.

As George toured, Twenty Five, a comprehensive compilation was released and its three new songs included a duet with Paul McCartney. Naturally it was a British Number 1, a global Top 10 hit and there was a 40-song DVD too. If that wasn't enough, George was also given the rare honour of a second South Bank Show to himself.#

Once the tour was over, it was time for wings-spreading with guest appearances on the British television hits The Catherine Tate Show and Ricky Gervais's Extras, plus regular appearances in the US sitcom Eli Stone, where each episode was titled after a George song. There was a stirring rendition of Praying For Time on that year's American Idol finale. The last few weeks of 2008, saw December Song (I Dreamed Of Christmas), co written by George's old friend David Austin, a Christmas gift via George's web site and a commercial release a year later.

In 2009, the Live In London DVD, filmed taken from two Earl's Court concerts on the 25 Live tour reached the top of the UK DVD charts. George also appeared with Beyonce to sing If I Were A Boy at London's 02 Arena and with Joe McElderry on the British talent show X Factor, where the pair duetted on Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me.

2010 undoubtedly had its moments, three rip-roaring, sell-out dates in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, featuring songs from I'm Your Man to Amazing, George's first shows in Australia since the Faith tour in 1988.

2011 is already turning out to be a vintage year for George. Faith was reissued in January. Then in March, George took part in Comic Relief and Red Nose Day. An enthusiastic supporter of Comic Relief since he gave them his royalties from his duet with Mary J. Blige on Stevie Wonder's As and appeared on a classic Little Britain sketch with Matt Lucas and David Walliams as Lou'n'Andy, this year he really went to town. Not only did he take part in a sketch with Gavin & Stacey's James Corden, but his version of New Order's True Faith was the official Comic Relief single. George didn't simply cover the song, he re-invented it as a gorgeous, stately ballad and the single raised thousands for the charity.

And, in even more generous mood, he revealed to his near-150,000 followers on his legendary Twitter account (@GeorgeMichael) that as a special gift to mark the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton he had recorded a special version of another Stevie Wonder classic, the impossibly romantic You and I. The track was made available as a free MP3 download from GeorgeMichael.com for a limited period and George encouraged downloaders to make a donation to the Prince William & Miss Catherine Middleton Charitable Gift Fund.

And, finally, the news his fans have been waiting for: there's going to be a George Michael European tour this summer, his first in the northern hemisphere since 2006-08's 25 Live. Watch this space!

Last week George Michael held a press conference in central London, to announce the ‘Symphonica’ tour to the assembled media and the world. Such is the interest the ex-Wham star, his announcement generated hundreds of column inches, all across the globe. George Michael's fans, were ready and waiting to book their tickets to see his return to the LIVE stage, when box offices opened across the country yesterday morning. Queues for tickets were reported at many of the specially selected venues up and down the UK.

And so, extra dates have been added to the UK leg of George's tour. Due to fantastic public demand, today London's Earls Court has been added to the schedule , with second shows in Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester .

Recheduled and new tour dates announced ...

Following the cancellation of his Wednesday 26 October performance, the replacement date for George Michael’s Symphonica – The Orchestral Tour at the Royal Albert Hall has now been confirmed as Wednesday 2nd May 2012.

 

Concert promoters ask ticket holders for the cancelled concert to please retain their tickets, as they will be valid for the rescheduled date. Those unable to attend should contact their original point of purchase for details on how to obtain a refund, before 15 December 2011.

 

All other dates on George Michael’s Symphonica - The Orchestral Tour remain unaffected.

In response to the phenomenal demand from his fans, we are pleased to report that George Michael has announced that he will extend his London's dates to include another Earl's Court show. This new date - Monday 19th December 2011 - has been added to the UK leg of his European orchestral ‘Symphonica’ Tour.

George Michael's Symphonica The Orchestral Tour will include 2 extra dates during the European leg: one in Denmark and another in Italy. George will additionally play The Forum in Copenhagen on Saturday 3rd September and the Mediolanum Forum in Milan on Friday 11 November.

The Symphonica Tour kicks off in in the Czech capital Prague on August 22nd and closes in London on December 19th. The tour includes a staggering 62 dates, across 17 countries and will see this much-loved British singer-songwriter, perform a backed by a full orchestra.

We caught up with George Michael a few weeks ago to talk about the tour. We asked how had he come up with the idea of going on tour with an orchestra?

“It‘s something I always dreamed of doing from a perspective of a singer. …, I am re-arranging a lot of this work specifically for the orchestra, which is going on at the moment. And there are some other elements; too, which I think will be very originally, I am hoping, in terms of the presentation. So creatively, this is going to stretch me not just as a vocalist, but in terms of ideas.“

George already announced via his Twitter profile that some of the tracks he might be performing include 'Cowboys & Angels', 'Kissing a Fool', 'Song to the Siren' and 'Older', but will there be any duets with other artists?

“I should definitely try to have some duets happen during the tour, it would be a waste not to, really. There are some great singers I still haven’t sung with.“

Tickets for this extra Milan show go on sale 28th July. Tickets for George's Copenhagen concert are to go on sale on August 1st.