PROMS FOR PATRIOTS
RICHARD MORRISON
Alice Coote
There are lots of stunning British pieces in the Proms Chamber Music series at Cadogan Hall. This lunch-time song recital ranges from Elgar and the sugary but sometimes sublime Roger Quilter to a 2003 cycle by Judith Weir. July 16, 1pm (Proms Chamber Music 1)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Davis
Sir Michael Tippett’s gorgeous, late Triple Concerto is sandwiched between Delius’s Song of Summer and Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony, the astonishingly serene masterpiece he wrote at the darkest hour of the Second World War. July 26, 7.30pm (Prom 18)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Oramo
Elgar’s choral epic The Apostles, unmissable in his 150th birthday year. Earlier, in Cadogan Hall, the English Consort plays jolly 18th-century British music, including some by the “English Mozart”, Thomas Linley, who died aged 22. August 18, 6.30pm (Prom 46)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Belohl?vek
We can’t leave out the jingoistic ditties of the Last Night, plus a rare revival of Elgar’s The Fourth of August, a heartfelt prayer written during the First World War and included in his Spirit of England. September 8, 7.30pm (Prom 72)
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GENRE-BLENDING PROMS
JOHN BUNGEY
John Dankworth and Cleo Laine: From Bards to Blues
Jazz’s most enduring couple march determinedly towards their 80th birthdays with a concert featuring Soweto Kinch, Guy Barker, the BBC Big Band – and Shakespeare. August 8, 7.30pm (Prom 35)
An Evening with Nitin Sawhney and Friends
The eclectic’s eclectic fuses East and West with a 60-piece orchestra and guests including the singer Natacha Atlas. Expect old hits, some classical fanfares and ear-tickling surprises. August 10, 9pm (Prom 37)
Marcus Roberts Trio and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
The pianist who earned his spurs as one of Wynton Marsalis’s sharp-suited “young lions” applies his improvisational flair to Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin would surely have approved of his bluesy, swinging excursions. August 14, 7.30pm (Prom 41)
Maxim Vengerov and the London Symphony Orchestra
Vengerov performs the Viola Tango Rock Concerto by the young Tajik-Israeli composer Benjamin Yusupov. As the title suggests, you also get a tango dancer for your money. Those fearing a Rick Wakeman-style rock-classical collision will discover a much more subtle, jazz-tinged work. August 18, 10.15pm (Prom 47)
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An Evening with Michael Ball
He is surely the first Eurovision Song Contest entrant to make the Proms, and the vocalist’s evening of musical theatre hits has raised eyebrows. Still, if too much Ligeti and Lutoslawski has curdled the grey stuff, Ball’s easy charms may soothe. August 27, 8pm (Prom 58)
PROMS FOR BRAINIACS
GEOFF BROWN
BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Robertson
Ear blocked with wax? The first Proms commission, Substratum, by the lively young Brit Sam Hayden, will probably shake it loose. Prepare for sonic challenges too in Charles Ives’s tumultuous, uplifting Fourth Symphony. July 17, 7pm (Prom 5)
London Sinfonietta/M?lkki
Susanna M?lkki, one of the sharpest new music conductors around, guides the London Sinfonietta and the BBC Singers through two substantial pieces: the grey anguish of Birtwistle’s 2005 Neruda Madrigals, and Boulez’s expanded revision of D?rive 2. July 31, 10pm (Prom 25)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Brabbins
The belligerent sounds of Birtwistle’s Panic upset the apple cart during the 1995 Last Night. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s late-night programme revives it with MacMillan’s percussion concerto classic Veni, veni Emmanueland evocative late Lutoslawski. The fearless Martyn Brabbins conducts. August 16, 10.15pm (Prom 44)
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BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Adams
There has been no UK staging yet of John Adams’s opera Doctor Atomic, but the Proms prepares the ground with the world premiere of a Doctor Atomic Symphony. Plus his piano concerto Century Rolls, with the eccentric Olli Mustonen. August 21, 7.30pm (Prom 50)
BBC Singers
Bach walked 200 miles to hear Buxtehude play the organ. The least we can do is to hop on a bus to hear John Scott parade the Albert Hall organ through his magnificent virile music, too much neglected. Plus Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater from the BBC Singers. September 3, 10.15pm (Prom 67)
PROMS FOR NEWCOMERS
NEIL FISHER
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Newcomers to The Rhapsody on a Theme of the South Bank Show (Rachmaninov, the theme is actually by Paganini) will discover that the piece is as much about limpid beauty as it is about glittery display. Nelson Goerner is the soloist. July 19, 7.30pm (Prom 8)
Blue Peter Prom
Children’s concerts are notoriously stodgy, but not the Blue Peter Prom. This year’s programme, featuring Connie Fisher, is cannily hinged around music inspired by the Bard. July 21 and July 22, 11am (Proms 10 and 12)
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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Much-played, never tired of: you will have heard the Grieg Piano Concerto, though possibly not in the way that the impulsive pianist Boris Berezovsky intends to bash it out. August 16, 7pm (Prom 43)
Sim?n BolÍvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
There is no sight – or sound – quite like this orchestra, particularly when their frizzy-haired maestro, Gustavo Dudamel, is at the helm. An electrifying programme of Bernstein and Shostakovich should more than hold your attention. August 19, 6.30pm (Prom 48)
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Few Baroque gems match Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks for crackling fervour and brassy thrills – and that’s just the tailend of a concert full of bite-size 18th-century snippets. Fade in and out at will. August 23, 7.30pm (Prom 52)
PROMS FOR STAR-HUNTERS
DEBRA CRAINE
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
She may be difficult but she’s a true diva, so who cares? Ren?e Fleming wraps her golden soprano voice around Berg’s Seven Early Songs, along with two arias by Korngold. Fans will drool. August 6, 7.30pm (Prom 32)
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London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev is so intense it’s scary, but when he conducts Russian music it’s a marriage made in heaven. How perfect then that he’s bringing the LSO to the Proms with a programme of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Sparks will fly. August 28, 7.30pm (Prom 59)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
For sheer presence and command of the podium, there’s no one to beat Latvia’s favourite son, Mariss Jansons. Just the qualities you want when conducting Beethoven’s majestic Ninth Symphony. August 30, 7.30pm (Prom 62)
San Francisco Symphony
Deborah Voigt hit the headlines because she couldn’t fit into Covent Garden’s little black dress, but that’s all behind her now. Singing the final scene from Strauss’s steamy Salome is really the perfect role for America’s leading dramatic soprano. September 1, 6.30pm (Prom 64)
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Not content with running the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the indefatigable James Levine is also music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conducting Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust with his Boston band will allow him to indulge his flair for theatrics. September 6, 7pm (Prom 70)
The Proms on TV, radio and online, plus how to book
BBC TWO
First Night (tonight, 8pm); Prom 29 (Aug 4); Prom 38 (Aug 11); Prom 55 (Aug 25); Prom 64 (Sept 1); Last Night, first half (Sept 8). The second half will be on BBC One. BBC Two will also record the film music Prom tomorrow for broadcast on July 28.
BBC FOUR
Prom 3 (Sunday); Prom 4 (July 16); Prom 5 (July 17); Prom 13 (July 22); Prom 14 (July 23); Prom 22 (July 29); Prom 23 (July 30); Prom 24 (July 31); Prom 31 (Aug 5); Prom 32 (Aug 6); Prom 33 (Aug 7); Prom 40 (Aug 13); Prom 41 (Aug 14); Prom 48 (Aug 19); Prom 49 (Aug 20); Prom 56 (Aug 26); Prom 58 (Aug 27); Prom 59 (Aug 28)
RADIO
Radio 3 broadcasts all the concerts
TIMES ONLINE
For all reviews and features, go to timesonline.co.uk/proms
HOW TO BOOK
— By telephone: 020-7589 8212; online: bbc.co.uk/proms