BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 30: National Youth Orchestra of Scotland/Ilan Volkov – Helen Grime’s Snow & Stravinsky’s Firebird – Pavel Kolesnikov plays Tchaikovsky
Helen Grime was an oboist with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland so it is fitting that this group should give the premiere of Snow, the second part of Grime’s...
Prom 29: National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain/Edward Gardner – Gravitational Waves, Also sprach Zarathustra, The Planets plus Pluto
After having given one of the best concerts of the year so far, in April at the Royal Festival Hall, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain was in London...
Proms at … The Chapel, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich – Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle; BBC Singers/David Hill
Neither small nor solemn, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle (1863) is the last of his major works and came after an opera-dry period, for William Tell had been completed over three...
Prom 28: National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland with Iain Ballamy & Liane Carroll – Such Sweet Thunder
Now into its third decade, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland was more than due a Proms platform for its all-round excellence. Falling into three parts, this late-night event...
Prom 27: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard – Catterline in Winter & Petrushka – Pekka Kuusisto plays Tchaikovsky; Composers in Conversation: Helen Grime
Helen Grime is worth getting to know. In her interesting Conversation with Andrew McGregor (without live music on this occasion) she revealed a wide range of cultural tastes. She recounted...
Prom 26: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen – UK premiere of Reinbert de Leeuw’s Der nächtliche Wanderer – Peter Serkin plays Brahms
Renowned as conductor, pianist and arranger, Reinbert de Leeuw (born 1938) is little known outside the Netherlands as a composer. Yet in the 1960s he was at the forefront of...
Prom 25: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Dutoit – Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with Ildikó Komlósi & John Relyea – Alban Gerhardt plays Dvořák’s Cello Concerto
“The tale is old / That shall be told”. John Relyea has one of those voices that seem to come from a couple of hundred metres underground. Speaking the Prologue...
Prom 24: BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena – Ginastera’s Ollantay & Schubert’s Great C-major Symphony – Steven Osborne plays Britten’s Piano Concerto
Centenary composer Alberto Ginastera remains an unknown quantity, although English National Opera’s production of Bomarzo is fondly remembered from forty years ago.The colourfully scored Ollantay – only the fourth time...
Prom 23: BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds – Armonica, The Tempest, Nielsen 5 – Thomas Zehetmair plays Schumann’s Violin Concerto
This intelligently devised and enthrallingly executed programme explored a metaphysical and otherworldly dimension as envisaged by a variety of north-European composers. John Storgårds conducted the BBC Philharmonic on that journey...
Proms Chamber Music 3: A Satie Cabaret with Alistair McGowan, Jean Delescluse & Alexandre Tharaud
Nearly thwarted by delays on the Underground (latecomers arrived throughout the first fifteen minutes) this well-attended Proms Chamber Music recital of miniatures celebrated the music of Erik Satie (he was...
Prom 22: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner – Mother Goose, King Lear, La mer – UK premiere of Lera Auerbach’s The Infant Minstrel and His Peculiar Menagerie
This Prom centred on a first British hearing for a major work by Lera Auerbach – the Russian-born and (for some twenty-five years) American-domiciled polymath whose music has gained something...
Prom 21: Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon – Wolfgang Rihm’s Hunted Form & Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony – François Leleux plays Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto
Exactly a year on, in the same matinee spot on the third Sunday of the Proms, the Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon returned with their now stock-in-trade feat to play...
Prom 20: John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette… Julie Boulianne, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt & Laurent Naouri; Monteverdi Choir; National Youth Choir of Scotland; Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Only the fourth complete performance of Roméo et Juliette at the Proms this – although not stated as such – was really a Proms premiere. The reason? Well, John Eliot...
Prom 19: David Bowie Prom – Marc Almond, Paul Buchanan, Neil Hannon, John Cale, Anna Calvi, Philippe Jaroussky, Laura Mvula, Amanda Palmer… s t a r g a z e/André de Ridder
Whether or not this late-night Prom would have taken place had it not been for the untimely death of David Bowie seven months ago, the opportunity to reposition arguably Britain’s...
Prom 18: Bernard Haitink conducts the LSO in Mahler’s Third Symphony with Sarah Connolly
By convenient tradition high-profile Proms tend to come towards the end of the season but Bernard Haitink has few rivals when it comes to old-school weight and gravitas. In fifty...
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