What to see this season
This year’s Proms line-up is announced today and the programme is more eclectic than ever. Ben Lawrence picks the highlights
In the 123 years since the Proms was founded by Henry Wood, the world’s largest celebration of classical music has been through many changes. It has of course had to evolve. The stuffed-shirt snobbery has long gone, as has the very recent attempt to make it cool (Pete Tong) or promote BBC brands such as Strictly Come Dancing and Sherlock. As the BBC announces this latest season, it’s clear that its director, David Pickard, has thought very hard about how to make it both accessible and a beacon of musical excellence and erudition – and the 2018 season is a combination of the accessible and the avant-garde, the en vogue and the esoteric.
Working out what to see (or listen to – BBC Radio 3 continues to broadcast every Prom) is a Herculean task – with 90 concerts taking place over eight weeks and, as is now usual, across several venues. Here is our pick. First Night of the Proms Prom 1 July 13, 8.15pm The highlight of this all-british programme is a new work by Anna Meredith, Five Telegrams, which considers communications by young soldiers at the end of the Great War. Leading digital wizards 59 Productions will provide their usual dazzling projections. Young Musician Prom Prom 3
July 15, 7pm
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Young Musician of the Year, previous winners and finalists (including that unforgettable 2016 line-up of Ben Goldscheider, Jess Gillam and winner Sheku Kanneh-mason) unite for a mixed programme that includes Saintsaëns’s Carnival of the Animals and three new commissions. Pelléas et Mélisande Prom 5
July 17, 6.30pm
Another centenary (that of Debussy’s death) is marked by a semi-staged performance of Glyndebourne’s new production. This magical opera, about the deadly link between power and desire, will be conducted by Robin Ticciati. Jacob Collier and Friends Prom 7
July 19, 7.30pm
The young Youtube sensation is sure to drag the Promenaders into the 21st century with his multi-tracked arrangements of such classics as Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing. Here, he joins forces with Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orkest. Pioneers of Sound Prom 13 – Late Night July 23, 10.15pm The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is best known for perhaps the greatest TV theme tune in history – Doctor
Who. This concert salutes the work of its arranger, Delia Derbyshire, as well as that of other British female pioneers, most notably Daphne Oram, whose Still Point is a work of dark, futuristic genius. The fact that it was written in 1949 only broadens its appeal. Havana Meets Kingston Prom 23 – Late Night July 31, 10.15pm The profile of world music significantly shifted with the success of Buena Vista Social Club in the Nineties. Here, some of its surviving members take part in a special concert which fuses Cuban and Jamaican culture. Australian dance hall producer Mista Savona takes charge. The Brandenburg Project Proms 29 and 30 August 5, 3pm/7.30pm This mammoth undertaking sees Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra perform in full Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, a collection of six instrumental works, over two Proms in one day. Radically orchestrated and featuring newly commissioned companion works, expect this to be a freshly minted interpretation of some of classical music’s best-loved works. West-eastern Divan Orchestra/daniel Barenboim Prom 43
August 14, 7.30pm
The lyrical colours of Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D Major opens this concert, which, appropriately enough, will mix music and politics: the programme also includes the London premiere of David Robert Coleman’s Looking for Palestine. And you can expect a weighty speech at the end from Barenboim, the world’s greatest advocate of classical music as a salve for divided times. Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Prom 45 August 16, 7pm
This renowned Geneva orchestra is 100 years old and making its Proms debut (under its English musical director, Jonathan Nott). One of this season’s strands is French music and here is a chance to catch Ravel’s jazzy Violin Sonata in G Major as well as the dance fantasy, Jeux – Debussy’s last orchestral work. English Choral Music Proms at Cadogan Hall August 20, 1pm
This afternoon of choral music includes the unveiling of a new work by Laura Mvula and an unutterably moving piece by Hubert Parry, who died of Spanish flu during the 1918 pandemic. Songs of Farewell is a powerful study of taking stock by a man reaching the end of his life. Youssou N’dour Prom 53 – Late Night August 21, 10.15pm
The Senegalese superstar makes his Proms debut with this acoustic set, accompanied by his group, Le Super Etoile de Dakar. Expect jazz, soul and west African influences, cemented by the Unicef ambassador’s soaring vocals. Ivan Fischer Prom 54
August 22, 7.30pm
This, the first of two Proms from Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra is bound to delve deep into Mahler’s much-loved Fourth Symphony with its numinous evocation of what heaven might be like. Also on the bill: Bartók’s vibrant Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Enescu’s ominous sounding Prélude à l’unisson. Benjamin Grosvenor Prom 56
August 24, 7.30pm
He may only be 26, but former Young Musician of the Year Benjamin Grosvenor has already proved himself to be a pianist of exceptional emotional maturity. Here, he will also need to display technical assurance as he takes on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21. Leonard Bernstein – On the Town Prom 57 August 25, 7.30pm Out of several Proms marking the centenary of Bernstein’s birth, the highlight is surely this staged concert of the musical which follows the lives of three sailors on leave in New York. Charismatic Proms fixture John Wilson conducts. Last Night of the Proms Prom 75 September 8, 7.15pm Whether you love it or hate it, this Last Night will be in safe hands as Andrew Davis picks up the Proms baton for the 130th time. Whatever you think of Jerusalem, it will elicit a particular poignancy in the centenary year of its composer Hubert Parry’s death.
General booking opens on May 12. For full information, visit bbc.co.uk/proms; 020 7070 4441