2020 Live [BBC Proms]

Title

First
Broadcast

Comments

American Dreams

20200908

California-born Ryan Bancroft makes his debut as Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and at the Proms, with this programme which has a focus on America and its music. Martin?'s Jazz Suite perfectly complements John Adams's Chamber Symphony; the sound-world of which arose for the composer when he viewed his study of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony through the lens of cartoon music coming from the next room. An exciting new commission by British composer Gavin Higgins entitled Rough Voices follows, before two American classics: Barber's nostalgic evocation of a balmy Tennessee night and Copland's exhilarating ballet suite inspired by early-19th-century pioneer settlers in Pennsylvania, in its less-heard original chamber version.

7.30pm Martin?: Jazz Suite

Adams: Chamber Symphony

Higgins: Rough Voices

Barber: Knoxville - Summer of 1915

Copland: Appalachian Spring

Ryan Bancroft (conductor)

Natalya Romaniw (soprano)

Ryan Bancroft conducts BBC NOW in a Prom which celebrates popular music from the USA

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Anoushka Shankar: New Explorations

20200904

Live from the BBC Proms:

Anoushka Shankar, Gold Panda and Manu Delago perform 'The Sitar and the Hang', with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Jules Buckley.

Presented by Ian Skelly live from the Royal Albert Hall.

Anoushka Shankar sitar

Gold Panda live electronics

Manu Delago percussion

Jules Buckley conductor

Boundary-crossing, multi-Grammy-nominated sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar returns to the Proms, showcasing two of her most recent collaborations.

In the centenary year of her father Ravi Shankar's birth and with the aim of presenting ragas and the sitar in a new light', she combines recordings of some of his works both with her own sitar improvisations and with live electronics by composer/producer Gold Panda.

Alongside conductor and arranger Jules Buckley, Anoushka Shankar has produced new arrangements of her own pieces for the Britten Sinfonia strings, who are joined by her regular collaborator percussionist Manu Delago. Among them are Wandering Around', Voice of the Moon', Land of Gold' and Chasing Shadows'.

Live from the BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar and Gold Panda perform 'The Sitar and the Hang

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Baroque Doubles: Nicola Benedetti With The Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment

20200903

The cavernous Royal Albert Hall auditorium is an ideal space to explore the clean harmonies and decorative melodies of the Baroque concerto. Period-instrument ensemble the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is joined by leading violinist Nicola Benedetti to perform double violin concertos by Vivaldi and Bach. In addition to one of only three concertos Vivaldi wrote for two oboes, we hear concerti grossi by Handel and Newcastle-born Charles Avison.

Presented by Martin Handley, live from the Royal Albert Hall.

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in D major for two violins, RV 513

George Frideric Handel: Concerto grosso in B flat major, Op 3 No 2

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in D minor for two violins, RV 514

George Frideric Handel: Radamisto - Passacaglia

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in A minor for two oboes, RV 536

Charles Avison: Concerto grosso No 5 in D minor (after Scarlatti)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins, BWV 1043

Nicola Benedetti (violin)

Kati Debretzeni (violin in Vivaldi, RV 514)

Rodolfo Richter (violin in Vivaldi, RV 513)

Matthew Truscott (violin in Bach)

Katharina Spreckelsen (oboe)

Sarah Humphrys (oboe)

Jonathan Cohen (director/harpsichord)

Jonathan Cohen directs the OAE in music by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach and Avison.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra With Stephen Hough

20200905

Live from BBC Proms

Presented by Kate Molleson, live from City Halls, Glasgow

Beethoven's economically scored Second Piano Concerto - written before his First and among the earliest of his works performed in concert halls today - looks both backwards to Haydn and Mozart and forwards to Beethoven's future innovation and rhythmic fascination.

Tonight's BBC commission is from Glasgow-based composer Jay Capperauld. Expressed in the context of the recurring 24-hour process that regulates our sleeping patterns, Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) is Capperauld's response to the cyclical nature of lockdown, enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Continuing the theme of mass upheaval, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra closes with Strauss's devastating Metamorphosen. Written for 23 solo strings during the final months of the Second World War (which Strauss described as the most terrible period of mankind'), it quotes from the Funeral March of Beethoven's Eroica' Symphony (No. 3).

Walker Lyric for Strings

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2

Jay Capperauld Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) (BBC commission: world premiere)

Strauss Metamorphosen

Stephen Hough, piano

Alpesh Chauhan, conductor

Live from BBC Proms: Stephen Hough joins Alpesh Chauhan and the BBC SSO

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Beethoven From Memory

20200910

Live at the BBC Proms from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Presented by Tom Service

Richard Ayres No. 52 (Three pieces about Ludwig van Beethoven: dreaming, hearing loss and saying goodbye)

BBC co-commission: world premiere

Symphony No. 7 in A major

Tom Service presenter

Aurora Orchestra

Nicholas Collon conductor

Beethoven's hearing loss plunged the composer into isolation and despair, so it's hard to believe him capable of producing a symphony such as his Seventh, which pulses with restless energy - and which the Aurora Orchestra plays from memory. It's a work with a special place in Proms history, too: it was the last piece Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood directed before his death in 1944.

Richard Ayres opens the concert with a deeply personal new work inspired both by Beethoven's journey into deafness and his own experience of hearing loss, a vivid soundscape in which clarity gradually gives way to confusion.

Radio 3's Tom Service and Aurora Orchestra Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon guide us through the programme with their customary lively and expert introductions.

Aurora Orchestra perform Beethoven's Seventh Symphony from memory

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Beethoven's Eroica

20200828

Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the first live Prom of the 2020 season. Beethoven's epic Third Symphony sits alongside Copland's Quiet City and a Basquiat-inspired world premiere from Hannah Kendall. The BBC Singers perform Eric Whitacre's Sleep.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall

Presented by Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny

Hannah Kendall: Tuxedo: Vasco de' Gama (BBC commission: world premiere)

Eric Whitacre: Sleep*

Aaron Copland: Quiet City

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Eroica

BBC Singers*

Nicholas Chalmers (conductor)*

Sakari Oramo (conductor)

Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra kick off this season's live offering with a specially-commissioned work by English composer Hannah Kendall. Tuxedo: Vasco de' Gama takes as its title a quote from American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's matrix of hieroglyphs, symbols and words, and it launches a voyage across the Atlantic that takes us via Eric Whitacre's tender Sleep, sung by the BBC Singers, to the expansive, desolate sound-world of Copland's Quiet City.

For the concert's climax we plunge into the stormy waters of Beethoven's revolutionary Eroica' Symphony, noted by one early reviewer for its strange modulations and violent transitions' - a passionate musical vision of heroism.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Jonathan Scott Organ Recital At The Rah

20200829

Live from BBC Proms: Jonathan Scott organ recital.

Presented by Georgia Mann

In the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall, Manchester-born Jonathan Scott sits alone at the 70-foot-tall Henry Willis organ - an instrument Scott describes as one of the greatest concert organs in the entire world'. Here he exploits the full possibilities of the musical beast's four manuals, 147 stops and 9,999 pipes, to bring to life his own symphonic arrangements of colourful orchestral classics.

Scott's selection opens with the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, its famous snare drum exchanged for bellowing pedals. (Scott's footwork has been said to put Gene Kelly to shame.)

After the serene, reflective Intermezzo from Mascagni's opera Cavalleria rusticana comes Dukas's mischievous trainee wizard, whose attempt to make light work of filling a cauldron with pails of water backfires, resulting in a rising tide of chaos. The concert's climax is the Organ' Symphony by Saint-Sa뀀ns, commissioned by London's Philharmonic Society and first performed at St James's Hall, Piccadilly, a couple of miles from the Royal Albert Hall. With Scott taking on the roles of both solo organist and orchestra, it's a fitting tribute to the French composer, who was himself was among the first to play the Royal Albert Hall's mighty organ when it was completed in 1871.

Rossini: Overture to The Thieving Magpie

Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana - Intermezzo

Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Saint-Saens: Symphony No.3

Live from BBC Proms: Jonathan Scott live at the Royal Albert Hall's mighty organ.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Kokoroko, West African Afrobeat And Jazz

20200907

KOKOROKO - music from West Africa re-invented for our times.

With their captivating mix of Afrobeat and jazz, this promises to be a memorable night at the BBC Proms. The eight members of KOKOROKO bring a contemporary social and political commentary to the West African Rhythms heard in the 1940s London's Soho area. As they say: `We wanted the music to sound rough, like going out and hearing music pushed through speakers or the energy of people dancing at Afrobeat parties: its music we've seen work on dance floors.`

Presented live from the Royal Albert Hall by Georgia Mann.

Tracks to include:

Uman

Abusey Junction

Ti-De

Flip Story

Baba Ayoola

Age of Ascent

Carry Me Home

Sheila Maurice-Grey - Trumpet

Cassie Kinoshi - Saxophone

Richie Seivewright Trombone

Tobi Adenaike-Johnson - Guitar

Yohan Kebede - Keys

Duane Atherley - Bass

Ayo Salawu - Drums

Onome Edgeworth - Percussion

Live from the BBC Proms: KOKOROKO - West African Afrobeat and jazz for our times.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Laura Marling At The Proms

20200906

Featuring brand-new string arrangements by Rob Moose performed by the London-based 12 Ensemble - whose collaborators include The National and Max Richter - this Prom journeys through the back catalogue of singer-songwriter Laura Marling, whose recent live performance the Guardian described as like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet'.

The Grammy and Mercury Prize winner takes the Royal Albert Hall stage for a one-off acoustic retrospective. Songs from her latest album including Fortune' and the album's title-track, Song for Our Daughter', sit alongside those from earlier albums including Alas, I Cannot Swim - released when Marling was just 18.

Presented by Andrew McGregor, live from the Royal Albert Hall.

The Suite: Take the Night Off - I was an Eagle - You Know - Breathe

Tap at my Window

The Valley

What he wrote

For You

Blow by Blow

The End of the Affair

Still crazy after all these years (Paul Simon cover)

Wild Fire

I hope we can meet again

How can I?

Daisy

Once

Salinas

Next Time

Goodbye England

Laura Marling (singer, guitar)

Nick Pini (bass)

Featuring songs from her Mercury Prize-nominated album, Song for Our Daughter.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

London Sinfonietta

20200901

Leading contemporary chamber ensemble the London Sinfonietta returns to the Royal Albert Hall for a showcase of Minimalist classics, including music by two giants of the 20th and 21st centuries, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

Presented by Georgia Mann.

Philip Glass: Facades

Julia Wolfe: East Broadway

Nancarrow arr. Yvar Mikhashoff Player Piano Study No. 6

Nancarrow arr. Yvar Mikhashoff Player Piano Study No. 9

Tansy Davies: Neon

Edmund Finnis in situ

Meredith: Axeman

Steve Reich: City Life

Geoffrey Paterson conductor

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Paavo Jarvi Conducts The Philharmonia Orchestra

20200909

BBC Proms: Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Benjamin Grosvenor performs Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Paavo Jarvi, bookended by Ravel's neo-Baroque masterpiece Le tombeau de Couperin and Mozart's titanic Symphony No. 41.

The sophisticated, transfigured Baroque dances of Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin offset Shostakovich's boisterous Piano Concerto No. 1, with its cheeky sprinkling of quotations from classical giants Beethoven and Haydn among others.

These two works of neo-baroque and neo-classical influences are followed by Mozart's final symphony, the Jupiter', a high point of the true' classical-period canon. Nicknamed posthumously for its majestic first movement and epic finale, the work is a summation of Mozart's entire symphonic output with its unique blend of grandeur and subtlety.

Presented by Petroc Trelawny.

Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin

Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No 1

Mozart: Symphony No 41, K551 (Jupiter)

Jason Evans (trumpet)

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)

Paavo Jarvi (conductor)

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, orchestral music by Ravel, Shostakovich and Mozart.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Rattle Conducts The Lso

20200830

Making his 75th appearance at the Proms, Sir Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a programme that explores the ideas of dialogue and space, including a new work by Thomas Ad耀s, Dawn, for piano and ensemble. Elgar's Introduction and Allegro - written for an all-Elgar concert given by the LSO in 1905 - singles out a string quartet alongside the string orchestra, while the brass have a chance to shine in canzons by Giovanni Gabrieli, with the 12 players arranged around the hall in separate choirs', calling and answering each other.

Alone at the piano, Dame Mitsuko Uchida performs the famous first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight' Sonata, which merges into Kurtကg's - quasi una fantasia - Creating an extraordinary sound palette, Kurtကg explores instrumental groups dispersed in space' around the piano.

In his Fifth Symphony Vaughan Williams deepened the dialogue in his music between the folk and the symphonic. After hearing the work's first performance - conducted by the composer at the Proms in 1943 - Adrian Boult was prompted to write to Vaughan Williams: Its serene loveliness is completely satisfying in these times and shows, as only music can, what we must work for when this madness is over' - an observation as relevant today as it was then.

Presented by Ian Skelly, live from the Royal Albert Hall.

Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Eric Crees): Sacrae symphoniae (1597) - Canzon septimi et octavi toni a 12

Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op 27 No 2 quasi una fantasia' (Moonlight') - 1st mvt

Gy怀rgy Kurtကg: - quasi una fantasia -

Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Eric Crees): Sacrae symphoniae (1597) - Canzon noni toni a 12

Thomas Ad耀s: Dawn (BBC commission: world premiere)

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No 5 in D major

Dame Mitsuko Uchida (piano)

Sir Simon Rattle (conductor)

An eclectic programme with works by Elgar, Ad\u00e8s, Gabrieli, Kurt\u00e1g and Vaughan Williams

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Sheku Kanneh-mason And Isata Kanneh-mason

20200906

Star British cellist-of-the-moment Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, perform sonatas by Beethoven, Barber and Rachmaninov.

Specially recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in August and presented by Martin Handley.

Beethoven: Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102 No. 1

Barber: Cello Sonata

Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G minor

Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano)

At only 21, Sheku Kanneh-Mason is already one of the most sought-after cellists, having won BBC Young Musician in 2016 and performed two years later to a worldwide audience of over 35 million at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

For this specially pre-recorded Proms recital he is joined by 24-year-old Isata Kanneh-Mason, the eldest of the family's seven musical siblings, who released her first solo CD last year to great acclaim.

Continuing our 250th-anniversary celebrations of Beethoven's birth, his C major Cello Sonata reflects the concentration of expression and form typical of his late period. By contrast, Barber's Sonata, though written in 1932, looks backwards, its drama and lyricism rooted in the Romantic era.

Rachmaninov's post-Romantic Sonata is a full-blooded cornerstone of the cello/piano repertoire whose macabre scherzo movement and joyously ebullient finale contrast with a slow movement of melting bittersweet indulgence.

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason performs Beethoven, Barber, Bridge and Rachmaninov.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The BBC Philharmonic, With Strings Attached

20200902

John Storgards, the BBC Philharmonic's Chief Guest Conductor, joins the orchestra for a programme which begins with a Haydn rarity; the overture to his puppet opera Philemon und Baucis, written for entertainment at Esterhazy. Britten's Nocturne - one of the treasured song-cycles he wrote for his partner, Peter Pears - explores a rich world of night-time images and dreams, drawing on an anthology of poems including words by Shakespeare, Tennyson and Keats. The soloist this evening is leading British tenor and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Allan Clayton. The spotlight falls on the strings of the BBC Philharmonic for Tchaikovsky's jewelled Serenade for Strings and another short gem by Tchaikovsky, the Entr'acte from his incidental music to 'Hamlet' in which the King and Queen express bewilderment at their son's descent into madness.

Live from MediaCityUK, Salford, presented by Tom McKinney

Haydn: Overture, Philemon und Baucis

Britten: Nocturne

Tchaikovsky: Hamlet - Entr'acte (Act IV)

Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings

Allan Clayton (tenor)

John Storgards (conductor)

The BBC Philharmonic and John Storgards in music by Haydn, Britten and Tchaikovsky.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The Last Night Of The Proms 2020

20200912

The BBC Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska makes her Last Night debut in the climax of a Proms season like no other. Tonight there's no flag-waving at the Royal Albert Hall, but instead a musical feast in countless living rooms - and on countless mobile devices - across the country and around the world.

South African soprano Golda Schultz sings a ravishing aria from Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro and the rapt, intimate song Morgen!' written by Richard Strauss as a wedding-day gift to his wife. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is also joined violinist Nicola Benedetti for Vaughan Williams's soaring The Lark Ascending.

In these unsettled times, a new commission by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi points to music's bright future. There's Belize-born composer Errollyn Wallen's Jerusalem - our clouded hills. her creatively reimagined arrangement, dedicated it to the Windrush generation, based on Elgar's take on Parry's setting of Blake's words. There are Last Night favourites including Parry's original Jerusalem, for which the BBC Singers join the BBC SO, and at the end, a specially recorded Lockdown recording of Auld Lang Syne by singers from the BBC Symphony Chorus and the National Chorus of Wales plus musicians from the BBC's orchestras.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall

Presented by Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Overture and 'Deh vieni, non tardar

Richard Strauss: Morgen!

Andrea Tarrodi: Solus (BBC commission: world premiere)

Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music - Night Waltz and 'The glamorous life

Jean Sibelius: Impromptu for Strings

Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Hubert Parry arr. Errollyn Wallen: Jerusalem - our clouded hills (BBC commission: world premiere)

arr. Henry Wood: Fantasia on British Sea Songs concluding with Arne: Rule, Britannia!

Edward Elgar (arr. Anne Dudley): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (Land of Hope and Glory')

Rogers and Hammerstein: You'll Never Walk Alone

Hubert Parry: Jerusalem

arr. Benjamin Britten: National Anthem

Golda Schultz (soprano)

Nicola Benedetti (violin)

Dalia Stasevska (conductor)

**************************************

Traditional arr Michael Higgins: Auld Lang Syne

Members of the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska in a musical feast.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Viennese Night

20200831

Live at BBC Proms: BBC Concert Orchestra, conductor Bramwell Tovey.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Presented by Petroc Trelawny.

Marking 150 years since the birth of Franz Lehကr - and recalling the long-running Proms tradition of the Viennese Night' begun in the 1950s - the BBC Concert Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey step into the gilded ballroom of operetta, evoking the glamour and sophistication of turn-of-the-century Vienna.

The concert features some of Lehကr's most popular titles such as The Merry Widow, The Land of Smiles and Giuditta, as well as music by some of his contemporaries. Nathaniel Anderson-Frank, leader of the BBC Concert Orchestra, takes the role of Paganini with a solo from Lehar's operetta of the same name, and the evening also includes excerpts from the most enduring and popular operetta of them all, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus.

Lehar: Overture (The Merry Widow)

Oscar Straus: Don't eat them all, you greedy man (from The Chocolate Soldier)

Lehar: Meine lippen sie Küssen so heiss (from Giuditta)

Kalman: Gruss mir mein Wien (from Gr䀀fin Mariza)

Johann Strauss II: Overture (Die Fledermaus)

Lehar, arr Dexter: Prelude and Violin solo (from Paganini)

Heuberger: Im Chambre separ退e (from Opera Ball)

Lehar: Gold and Silver Waltz

Lehar: Es lebt eine Vilja (from The Merry Widow)

Lehar: You are my heart's delight (from The Land of Smiles)

Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss: Pizzicato Polka

Johann Strauss II: The Watch Duet (from Die Fledermaus)

Sophie Bevan (soprano)

Robert Murray (tenor)

Bramwell Tovey (conductor)

A celebration of Viennese operetta with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey.

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

Episodes

Title	First Broadcast	Comments
American Dreams	20200908	California-born Ryan Bancroft makes his debut as Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and at the Proms, with this programme which has a focus on America and its music. Martin?'s Jazz Suite perfectly complements John Adams's Chamber Symphony; the sound-world of which arose for the composer when he viewed his study of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony through the lens of cartoon music coming from the next room. An exciting new commission by British composer Gavin Higgins entitled Rough Voices follows, before two American classics: Barber's nostalgic evocation of a balmy Tennessee night and Copland's exhilarating ballet suite inspired by early-19th-century pioneer settlers in Pennsylvania, in its less-heard original chamber version. 7.30pm Martin?: Jazz Suite Adams: Chamber Symphony Higgins: Rough Voices Barber: Knoxville - Summer of 1915 Copland: Appalachian Spring Ryan Bancroft (conductor) Natalya Romaniw (soprano) Ryan Bancroft conducts BBC NOW in a Prom which celebrates popular music from the USA The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Anoushka Shankar: New Explorations	20200904	Live from the BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar, Gold Panda and Manu Delago perform 'The Sitar and the Hang', with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Jules Buckley. Presented by Ian Skelly live from the Royal Albert Hall. Anoushka Shankar sitar Gold Panda live electronics Manu Delago percussion Jules Buckley conductor Boundary-crossing, multi-Grammy-nominated sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar returns to the Proms, showcasing two of her most recent collaborations. In the centenary year of her father Ravi Shankar's birth and with the aim of presenting ragas and the sitar in a new light', she combines recordings of some of his works both with her own sitar improvisations and with live electronics by composer/producer Gold Panda. Alongside conductor and arranger Jules Buckley, Anoushka Shankar has produced new arrangements of her own pieces for the Britten Sinfonia strings, who are joined by her regular collaborator percussionist Manu Delago. Among them are Wandering Around', Voice of the Moon', Land of Gold' and Chasing Shadows'. Live from the BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar and Gold Panda perform 'The Sitar and the Hang The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Baroque Doubles: Nicola Benedetti With The Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment	20200903	The cavernous Royal Albert Hall auditorium is an ideal space to explore the clean harmonies and decorative melodies of the Baroque concerto. Period-instrument ensemble the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is joined by leading violinist Nicola Benedetti to perform double violin concertos by Vivaldi and Bach. In addition to one of only three concertos Vivaldi wrote for two oboes, we hear concerti grossi by Handel and Newcastle-born Charles Avison. Presented by Martin Handley, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in D major for two violins, RV 513 George Frideric Handel: Concerto grosso in B flat major, Op 3 No 2 Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in D minor for two violins, RV 514 George Frideric Handel: Radamisto - Passacaglia Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in A minor for two oboes, RV 536 Charles Avison: Concerto grosso No 5 in D minor (after Scarlatti) Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins, BWV 1043 Nicola Benedetti (violin) Kati Debretzeni (violin in Vivaldi, RV 514) Rodolfo Richter (violin in Vivaldi, RV 513) Matthew Truscott (violin in Bach) Katharina Spreckelsen (oboe) Sarah Humphrys (oboe) Jonathan Cohen (director/harpsichord) Jonathan Cohen directs the OAE in music by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach and Avison. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra With Stephen Hough	20200905	Live from BBC Proms Presented by Kate Molleson, live from City Halls, Glasgow Beethoven's economically scored Second Piano Concerto - written before his First and among the earliest of his works performed in concert halls today - looks both backwards to Haydn and Mozart and forwards to Beethoven's future innovation and rhythmic fascination. Tonight's BBC commission is from Glasgow-based composer Jay Capperauld. Expressed in the context of the recurring 24-hour process that regulates our sleeping patterns, Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) is Capperauld's response to the cyclical nature of lockdown, enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Continuing the theme of mass upheaval, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra closes with Strauss's devastating Metamorphosen. Written for 23 solo strings during the final months of the Second World War (which Strauss described as the most terrible period of mankind'), it quotes from the Funeral March of Beethoven's Eroica' Symphony (No. 3). Walker Lyric for Strings Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 Jay Capperauld Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) (BBC commission: world premiere) Strauss Metamorphosen Stephen Hough, piano Alpesh Chauhan, conductor Live from BBC Proms: Stephen Hough joins Alpesh Chauhan and the BBC SSO The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Beethoven From Memory	20200910	Live at the BBC Proms from the Royal Albert Hall, London Presented by Tom Service Richard Ayres No. 52 (Three pieces about Ludwig van Beethoven: dreaming, hearing loss and saying goodbye) BBC co-commission: world premiere Symphony No. 7 in A major Tom Service presenter Aurora Orchestra Nicholas Collon conductor Beethoven's hearing loss plunged the composer into isolation and despair, so it's hard to believe him capable of producing a symphony such as his Seventh, which pulses with restless energy - and which the Aurora Orchestra plays from memory. It's a work with a special place in Proms history, too: it was the last piece Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood directed before his death in 1944. Richard Ayres opens the concert with a deeply personal new work inspired both by Beethoven's journey into deafness and his own experience of hearing loss, a vivid soundscape in which clarity gradually gives way to confusion. Radio 3's Tom Service and Aurora Orchestra Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon guide us through the programme with their customary lively and expert introductions. Aurora Orchestra perform Beethoven's Seventh Symphony from memory The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Beethoven's Eroica	20200828	Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the first live Prom of the 2020 season. Beethoven's epic Third Symphony sits alongside Copland's Quiet City and a Basquiat-inspired world premiere from Hannah Kendall. The BBC Singers perform Eric Whitacre's Sleep. Live from the Royal Albert Hall Presented by Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny Hannah Kendall: Tuxedo: Vasco de' Gama (BBC commission: world premiere) Eric Whitacre: Sleep* Aaron Copland: Quiet City Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Eroica BBC Singers* Nicholas Chalmers (conductor)* Sakari Oramo (conductor) Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra kick off this season's live offering with a specially-commissioned work by English composer Hannah Kendall. Tuxedo: Vasco de' Gama takes as its title a quote from American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's matrix of hieroglyphs, symbols and words, and it launches a voyage across the Atlantic that takes us via Eric Whitacre's tender Sleep, sung by the BBC Singers, to the expansive, desolate sound-world of Copland's Quiet City. For the concert's climax we plunge into the stormy waters of Beethoven's revolutionary Eroica' Symphony, noted by one early reviewer for its strange modulations and violent transitions' - a passionate musical vision of heroism. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Jonathan Scott Organ Recital At The Rah	20200829	Live from BBC Proms: Jonathan Scott organ recital. Presented by Georgia Mann In the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall, Manchester-born Jonathan Scott sits alone at the 70-foot-tall Henry Willis organ - an instrument Scott describes as one of the greatest concert organs in the entire world'. Here he exploits the full possibilities of the musical beast's four manuals, 147 stops and 9,999 pipes, to bring to life his own symphonic arrangements of colourful orchestral classics. Scott's selection opens with the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, its famous snare drum exchanged for bellowing pedals. (Scott's footwork has been said to put Gene Kelly to shame.) After the serene, reflective Intermezzo from Mascagni's opera Cavalleria rusticana comes Dukas's mischievous trainee wizard, whose attempt to make light work of filling a cauldron with pails of water backfires, resulting in a rising tide of chaos. The concert's climax is the Organ' Symphony by Saint-Sa뀀ns, commissioned by London's Philharmonic Society and first performed at St James's Hall, Piccadilly, a couple of miles from the Royal Albert Hall. With Scott taking on the roles of both solo organist and orchestra, it's a fitting tribute to the French composer, who was himself was among the first to play the Royal Albert Hall's mighty organ when it was completed in 1871. Rossini: Overture to The Thieving Magpie Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana - Intermezzo Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice Saint-Saens: Symphony No.3 Live from BBC Proms: Jonathan Scott live at the Royal Albert Hall's mighty organ. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Kokoroko, West African Afrobeat And Jazz	20200907	KOKOROKO - music from West Africa re-invented for our times. With their captivating mix of Afrobeat and jazz, this promises to be a memorable night at the BBC Proms. The eight members of KOKOROKO bring a contemporary social and political commentary to the West African Rhythms heard in the 1940s London's Soho area. As they say: `We wanted the music to sound rough, like going out and hearing music pushed through speakers or the energy of people dancing at Afrobeat parties: its music we've seen work on dance floors.` Presented live from the Royal Albert Hall by Georgia Mann. Tracks to include: Uman Abusey Junction Ti-De Flip Story Baba Ayoola Age of Ascent Carry Me Home Sheila Maurice-Grey - Trumpet Cassie Kinoshi - Saxophone Richie Seivewright Trombone Tobi Adenaike-Johnson - Guitar Yohan Kebede - Keys Duane Atherley - Bass Ayo Salawu - Drums Onome Edgeworth - Percussion Live from the BBC Proms: KOKOROKO - West African Afrobeat and jazz for our times. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Laura Marling At The Proms	20200906	Featuring brand-new string arrangements by Rob Moose performed by the London-based 12 Ensemble - whose collaborators include The National and Max Richter - this Prom journeys through the back catalogue of singer-songwriter Laura Marling, whose recent live performance the Guardian described as like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet'. The Grammy and Mercury Prize winner takes the Royal Albert Hall stage for a one-off acoustic retrospective. Songs from her latest album including Fortune' and the album's title-track, Song for Our Daughter', sit alongside those from earlier albums including Alas, I Cannot Swim - released when Marling was just 18. Presented by Andrew McGregor, live from the Royal Albert Hall. The Suite: Take the Night Off - I was an Eagle - You Know - Breathe Tap at my Window The Valley What he wrote For You Blow by Blow The End of the Affair Still crazy after all these years (Paul Simon cover) Wild Fire I hope we can meet again How can I? Daisy Once Salinas Next Time Goodbye England Laura Marling (singer, guitar) Nick Pini (bass) Featuring songs from her Mercury Prize-nominated album, Song for Our Daughter. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
London Sinfonietta	20200901	Leading contemporary chamber ensemble the London Sinfonietta returns to the Royal Albert Hall for a showcase of Minimalist classics, including music by two giants of the 20th and 21st centuries, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Presented by Georgia Mann. Philip Glass: Facades Julia Wolfe: East Broadway Nancarrow arr. Yvar Mikhashoff Player Piano Study No. 6 Nancarrow arr. Yvar Mikhashoff Player Piano Study No. 9 Tansy Davies: Neon Edmund Finnis in situ Meredith: Axeman Steve Reich: City Life Geoffrey Paterson conductor The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Paavo Jarvi Conducts The Philharmonia Orchestra	20200909	BBC Proms: Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London. Benjamin Grosvenor performs Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Paavo Jarvi, bookended by Ravel's neo-Baroque masterpiece Le tombeau de Couperin and Mozart's titanic Symphony No. 41. The sophisticated, transfigured Baroque dances of Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin offset Shostakovich's boisterous Piano Concerto No. 1, with its cheeky sprinkling of quotations from classical giants Beethoven and Haydn among others. These two works of neo-baroque and neo-classical influences are followed by Mozart's final symphony, the Jupiter', a high point of the true' classical-period canon. Nicknamed posthumously for its majestic first movement and epic finale, the work is a summation of Mozart's entire symphonic output with its unique blend of grandeur and subtlety. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No 1 Mozart: Symphony No 41, K551 (Jupiter) Jason Evans (trumpet) Benjamin Grosvenor (piano) Paavo Jarvi (conductor) Live from the Royal Albert Hall, orchestral music by Ravel, Shostakovich and Mozart. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Rattle Conducts The Lso	20200830	Making his 75th appearance at the Proms, Sir Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a programme that explores the ideas of dialogue and space, including a new work by Thomas Ad耀s, Dawn, for piano and ensemble. Elgar's Introduction and Allegro - written for an all-Elgar concert given by the LSO in 1905 - singles out a string quartet alongside the string orchestra, while the brass have a chance to shine in canzons by Giovanni Gabrieli, with the 12 players arranged around the hall in separate choirs', calling and answering each other. Alone at the piano, Dame Mitsuko Uchida performs the famous first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight' Sonata, which merges into Kurtကg's - quasi una fantasia - Creating an extraordinary sound palette, Kurtကg explores instrumental groups dispersed in space' around the piano. In his Fifth Symphony Vaughan Williams deepened the dialogue in his music between the folk and the symphonic. After hearing the work's first performance - conducted by the composer at the Proms in 1943 - Adrian Boult was prompted to write to Vaughan Williams: Its serene loveliness is completely satisfying in these times and shows, as only music can, what we must work for when this madness is over' - an observation as relevant today as it was then. Presented by Ian Skelly, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Eric Crees): Sacrae symphoniae (1597) - Canzon septimi et octavi toni a 12 Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op 27 No 2 quasi una fantasia' (Moonlight') - 1st mvt Gy怀rgy Kurtကg: - quasi una fantasia - Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Eric Crees): Sacrae symphoniae (1597) - Canzon noni toni a 12 Thomas Ad耀s: Dawn (BBC commission: world premiere) Vaughan Williams: Symphony No 5 in D major Dame Mitsuko Uchida (piano) Sir Simon Rattle (conductor) An eclectic programme with works by Elgar, Ad\u00e8s, Gabrieli, Kurt\u00e1g and Vaughan Williams The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Sheku Kanneh-mason And Isata Kanneh-mason	20200906	Star British cellist-of-the-moment Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, perform sonatas by Beethoven, Barber and Rachmaninov. Specially recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in August and presented by Martin Handley. Beethoven: Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102 No. 1 Barber: Cello Sonata Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G minor Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello) Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano) At only 21, Sheku Kanneh-Mason is already one of the most sought-after cellists, having won BBC Young Musician in 2016 and performed two years later to a worldwide audience of over 35 million at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. For this specially pre-recorded Proms recital he is joined by 24-year-old Isata Kanneh-Mason, the eldest of the family's seven musical siblings, who released her first solo CD last year to great acclaim. Continuing our 250th-anniversary celebrations of Beethoven's birth, his C major Cello Sonata reflects the concentration of expression and form typical of his late period. By contrast, Barber's Sonata, though written in 1932, looks backwards, its drama and lyricism rooted in the Romantic era. Rachmaninov's post-Romantic Sonata is a full-blooded cornerstone of the cello/piano repertoire whose macabre scherzo movement and joyously ebullient finale contrast with a slow movement of melting bittersweet indulgence. Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason performs Beethoven, Barber, Bridge and Rachmaninov. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
The BBC Philharmonic, With Strings Attached	20200902	John Storgards, the BBC Philharmonic's Chief Guest Conductor, joins the orchestra for a programme which begins with a Haydn rarity; the overture to his puppet opera Philemon und Baucis, written for entertainment at Esterhazy. Britten's Nocturne - one of the treasured song-cycles he wrote for his partner, Peter Pears - explores a rich world of night-time images and dreams, drawing on an anthology of poems including words by Shakespeare, Tennyson and Keats. The soloist this evening is leading British tenor and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Allan Clayton. The spotlight falls on the strings of the BBC Philharmonic for Tchaikovsky's jewelled Serenade for Strings and another short gem by Tchaikovsky, the Entr'acte from his incidental music to 'Hamlet' in which the King and Queen express bewilderment at their son's descent into madness. Live from MediaCityUK, Salford, presented by Tom McKinney Haydn: Overture, Philemon und Baucis Britten: Nocturne Tchaikovsky: Hamlet - Entr'acte (Act IV) Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings Allan Clayton (tenor) John Storgards (conductor) The BBC Philharmonic and John Storgards in music by Haydn, Britten and Tchaikovsky. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
The Last Night Of The Proms 2020	20200912	The BBC Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska makes her Last Night debut in the climax of a Proms season like no other. Tonight there's no flag-waving at the Royal Albert Hall, but instead a musical feast in countless living rooms - and on countless mobile devices - across the country and around the world. South African soprano Golda Schultz sings a ravishing aria from Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro and the rapt, intimate song Morgen!' written by Richard Strauss as a wedding-day gift to his wife. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is also joined violinist Nicola Benedetti for Vaughan Williams's soaring The Lark Ascending. In these unsettled times, a new commission by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi points to music's bright future. There's Belize-born composer Errollyn Wallen's Jerusalem - our clouded hills. her creatively reimagined arrangement, dedicated it to the Windrush generation, based on Elgar's take on Parry's setting of Blake's words. There are Last Night favourites including Parry's original Jerusalem, for which the BBC Singers join the BBC SO, and at the end, a specially recorded Lockdown recording of Auld Lang Syne by singers from the BBC Symphony Chorus and the National Chorus of Wales plus musicians from the BBC's orchestras. Live from the Royal Albert Hall Presented by Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Overture and 'Deh vieni, non tardar Richard Strauss: Morgen! Andrea Tarrodi: Solus (BBC commission: world premiere) Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music - Night Waltz and 'The glamorous life Jean Sibelius: Impromptu for Strings Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending Hubert Parry arr. Errollyn Wallen: Jerusalem - our clouded hills (BBC commission: world premiere) arr. Henry Wood: Fantasia on British Sea Songs concluding with Arne: Rule, Britannia! Edward Elgar (arr. Anne Dudley): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (Land of Hope and Glory') Rogers and Hammerstein: You'll Never Walk Alone Hubert Parry: Jerusalem arr. Benjamin Britten: National Anthem Golda Schultz (soprano) Nicola Benedetti (violin) Dalia Stasevska (conductor) ************************************** Traditional arr Michael Higgins: Auld Lang Syne Members of the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra. The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska in a musical feast. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.
Viennese Night	20200831	Live at BBC Proms: BBC Concert Orchestra, conductor Bramwell Tovey. Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. Marking 150 years since the birth of Franz Lehကr - and recalling the long-running Proms tradition of the Viennese Night' begun in the 1950s - the BBC Concert Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey step into the gilded ballroom of operetta, evoking the glamour and sophistication of turn-of-the-century Vienna. The concert features some of Lehကr's most popular titles such as The Merry Widow, The Land of Smiles and Giuditta, as well as music by some of his contemporaries. Nathaniel Anderson-Frank, leader of the BBC Concert Orchestra, takes the role of Paganini with a solo from Lehar's operetta of the same name, and the evening also includes excerpts from the most enduring and popular operetta of them all, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus. Lehar: Overture (The Merry Widow) Oscar Straus: Don't eat them all, you greedy man (from The Chocolate Soldier) Lehar: Meine lippen sie Küssen so heiss (from Giuditta) Kalman: Gruss mir mein Wien (from Gr䀀fin Mariza) Johann Strauss II: Overture (Die Fledermaus) Lehar, arr Dexter: Prelude and Violin solo (from Paganini) Heuberger: Im Chambre separ退e (from Opera Ball) Lehar: Gold and Silver Waltz Lehar: Es lebt eine Vilja (from The Merry Widow) Lehar: You are my heart's delight (from The Land of Smiles) Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss: Pizzicato Polka Johann Strauss II: The Watch Duet (from Die Fledermaus) Sophie Bevan (soprano) Robert Murray (tenor) Bramwell Tovey (conductor) A celebration of Viennese operetta with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey. The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.