BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Photo: BBC/ Sisi Burn
This was the UK premiere of Kurtág's opera which has already received widespread acclaim since its premiere at La Scala in 2018. (Denoted here as Endgame, it would probably have made...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
A 'Latin' Prom, Elgar's and Strauss's Anglicisation/Germanicisation of late Romantic Italy offsetting the bel canto aria and ornament of Chopin in Warsaw a couple of generations earlier. Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the...
Photo: BBC/ Andy Paradise
Prone to plastic beaker dropping and desultory applause, the audience seemed stricken with bronchitis for much of this concert. A shame for music-making so preoccupied with clarity and precision. The...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
Although they have been regular visitors since 1992, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and its indefatigable co-founder and conductor Iván Fischer didn’t introduce their trademark ‘Audience Choice’ concert to the Proms...
Prom 37 - The Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer. Photo: BBC / Mark Allan
It’s often a question of horses for courses. Faced with a programme of overture, concerto and symphony – one of the mainstays of concert programming until more recent times –...
The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. Photo: Mark Allan
Music used in Kubrick’s landmark 1968 film ‘2001: A space odyssey’ being used to create a space odyssey of its own in the Royal Albert Hall in 2023? Would the...
Leila Josefowicz (violin) with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
Intervening illnesses are always unfortunate. In this case Sir Andrew Davis, the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, was prevented from conducting his old band, but happily their current boss, Sakari...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
With a revelatory first half containing Proms premieres by two notable female composers contrasting, or perhaps complementing, the better known ‘pop’ by Holst, the Royal Albert Hall was on the...
Photo: BBC/ Sisi Burn
Possibly in the pursuit of accessibility, the BBC thought it necessary to translate the French title, Dialogues des Carmélites, of Poulenc’s opera into Dialogues of the Carmelites, just to make...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
A genuinely full house reflected John Wilson’s special status at the Proms even if the Royal Albert Hall audience likes him best as the man who extended the concept of...
Photo: BBC/ MarkAllan
A programme with a superficially conventional look for what has become a traditional and very welcome event. Quite apart from the enthusiasm of the young musicians the sheer size of...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
Plenty of star power on offer here. Yuja Wang and Klaus Mäkelä are probably classical music’s hottest couple since Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna and the hall was full. Surprisingly perhaps...
Photo: BBC/ Mark Allan
How long should principal conductors stay with their chosen orchestras? Long enough to make their mark. In the case of Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, fifteen years of...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
Prom 22 unfurled a captivating tapestry of musical artistry, with Prokofiev's piano concerto No.3 and Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony gracing the stage, masterfully brought to life by the BBC National Orchestra...
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou
Originally built around the UK premiere of Mason Bates’s Piano Concerto, a score first heard more than 18 months ago in Philadelphia, Daniil Trifonov’s continuing inability (or unwillingness) to obtain...
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