BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 7: BBC Philharmonic – Omer Meir Wellber conducts Ben-Haim, Schoenberg & Schumann – Yeol Eum Son plays Mozart Piano Concerto K450
In his debut appearance at the Proms – as Chief Conductor designate of the BBC Philharmonic – Omer Meir Wellber ranged over three centuries’ worth of music with four bold...
Prom 6: Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music and The Juilliard School – Edward Gardner conducts Metacosmos & The Rite of Spring – James Ehnes plays Britten’s Violin Concerto
An ensemble of gifted students from London’s Royal Academy of Music and New York’s Julliard School. From the hot summer’s day outside – there were deck-chairs in Hyde Park –...
Proms at … Cadogan Hall/Proms Chamber Music 1: VOCES8
Interspersing some familiar choral works oft-heard in concerts or cathedral or church services and choral evensongs with snatches of the unfamiliar and two works by contemporary composers was a great...
Prom 5: CBeebies: A Musical Trip to the Moon [second voyage]
The CBeebies joined in the Proms celebrations of the fiftieth-anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the Moon with their own trip to it, including a brief diversion...
Prom 4: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits – Short Ride … The Planets – Nemanja Radulović plays Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto
Gustav Holst’s inspiration in writing The Planets may have been as much astrology as it was astronomy but it was the (too?) obvious work for the Proms celebration of the...
Prom 3: CBeebies: A Musical Trip to the Moon
Oh, what fun! From the choir’s splendid “Welcome to the CBeebies Prom” to an appeal to the Go Jetters to assist in getting the CBeebies’ rocket back to Earth, this...
Prom 2: Bamberg Symphony – Jakub Hrůša conducts Smetana’s Má vlast – Joshua Bell plays Dvořák’s Violin Concerto
This was a Prom of two halves – possibly of many smaller parts if one counts clapping between most movements of Má vlast. It is a brave promoter that starts...
First Night of the BBC Proms 2019 – Karina Canellakis conducts BBC Singers, Symphony Chorus & Symphony Orchestra – Zosha Di Castri commission, Dvořák’s Golden Spinning Wheel, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass
As old certainties fade the Last Night of the Proms has assumed a unique role in national life, albeit one that would have perplexed Henry Wood given that its ‘traditional’...
Lost in the Canyons of the Stars – Alan Davey’s Classical Source Blog – BBC Proms 2019 takes-off today, July 19
Today we start the 125th Proms season. One of the many great things about the Proms is its audience, a mixture of different ages and backgrounds, with open minds ready...
Prom 75: Andrew Davis conducts The Last Night, with Gerald Finley & Jess Gillam
Anyone counting on programme information from the BBC Proms website might have been surprised that Roxanna Panufnik’s Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light that was due to start the Last...
Prom 74: Handel’s Theodora conducted by Jonathan Cohen, with Louise Alder, Iestyn Davies & Ann Hallenberg
Handel’s penultimate oratorio, about the martyrdom of the saint, Theodora, for Christian beliefs in fourth-century Antioch, provided a serious and sobering offering ahead of the revelries of the Last Night...
Prom 73: Before the Ending of the Day – Tallis Scholars & Peter Phillips
Appositely – after Britten’s invocation to “Let us sleep now” in War Requiem heard in the evening’s first Prom – the final late-night concert this season was a seamless musical...
Prom 72: Peter Oundjian conducts Britten’s War Requiem
The centenary of the end of the First World War has been a constant presence in this year’s Proms, with three major Requiem settings and much other specifically war-related music...
Prom 71: John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz with Joyce DiDonato and Antoine Tamestit
A teacher of long ago wrote off Berlioz as a “frightful vulgarian who confused gesture and content”. I think she would have both gone into orbit and, I hope, reconsidered...
Prom 70: Tango
This was the Proms first foray into Tango and was launched by Katie Derham rocking a voluminous androgynous black-and-white Pierrot satin trouser suit – the antithesis of Tango attire. An...
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