Saturday 21 May 2016

BBC Proms 2016 – The World’s Greatest Classical Music Festival




The programme for the 122nd season of the BBC Proms www.bbc.co.uk/proms has been announced. Running from 15th July to 10th September the season, that has a strong Russian flavour, will consist of more than 90 concerts beginning on the First Night with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor and Prokofiev’s Cantata Alexander Nevsky.

One notable highlight will be bass-baritone Bryn Terfel who appears in the title role of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov with Sir Antonio Pappano conducting the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Among the soloists in Tchaikovsky’s concertos are Pekka Kuusisto in the Violin Concerto and Kirill Gerstein and Pavel Kolesnikov in the First and Second Piano Concertos respectively. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, will be performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard.

In the year of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro www.rio2016.com  there is also a Latin American focus with Marin Alsop bringing the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra to the Proms in a concert that features the Brazilian composers Marlos Nobre and Heitor along with Grieg and Rachmaninov. Later the São Paulo Jazz Symphony joins Marin Alsop and the city’s symphony orchestra for a Late Night Prom exploring Brazilian popular music.

Cello concertos performances during year's Proms will include Sol Gabetta playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Alban Gerhardt in Dvořák’s Concerto and Truls Mørk with Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Cellists Paul Watkins, Steven Isserlis and former BBC Young Musician Guy Johnston perform world premieres by Huw Watkins, Thomas Adès and Charlotte Bray and Leonard Elschenbroich plays a new work by Colin Matthews.

The 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death features highly with performances of works influenced by his plays, including Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. There is also a special day of Shakespeare-themed works by Purcell, Blow and Locke at Shakespeare’s Globe, performed by Arcangelo, as well as film music from Bernstein’s West Side Story to Walton’s Richard III, performed by Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Conductor, Bernard Haitink celebrates the 50th anniversary of his first concert at the Proms with Mahler’s Third Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra and mezzo soprano, Sarah Connolly.  

There will be a Gospel Prom celebrating the rich legacy of gospel music with a wide range of performers including the London Community Gospel Choir and the John Wilson Orchestra returns to celebrate the music of George Gershwin.

Among the visiting orchestras, conductors and soloists will be Martha Argerich performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim and Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in Brahms’s Second and Mahler’s Seventh symphonies.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's new music director, conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla makes her Proms debut with the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Sakari Oramo, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, will conduct this year’s Last Night of the Proms where he will be joined by tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

On 29th July there will be a late night Prom paying tribute to the rock and pop legend David Bowie, who died at the age of 69 in January this year and whose influence was felt in every field of the arts.

There will be a large number of Proms Extra events at both the Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial College Union as well as concerts from Cadogan Hall, London, The Chapel, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and the Roundhouse, Camden, London.

As usual each BBC Prom will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 with many also televised on BBC Four www.bbc.co.uk/events/r938q9/series/rd4wrz .

Don’t forget that there will last night celebrations with Proms in the Park 2016 at London’s Hyde Park, Parc Eirias, Colwyn Bay, Wales and Titanic Slipway, Belfast, Northern Ireland http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3vsb5Jn0sqpCdsGKsZXSqQ6/proms-in-the-park-2016 
Take a look at the BBC Proms website to see full details of all that is happening www.bbc.co.uk/proms



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