BBC will broadcast all live Proms performances on TV

THE BBC is to broadcast all live Proms performances on television for the first time.

Previously, only highlights of the programme were shown on screen. But this year, to make up for the fact that audiences cannot be at the Royal Albert Hall in person, every performance will be available to watch either on BBC Four or live-streamed on iplayer. They will also be broadcast as usual on Radio 3.

New additions to the programme include Benjamin Grosvenor, the pianist, who will appear with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Esa-pekka Salonen.

Laura Marling, the folk singer, and Jonathan Scott, the organist, have also been added to the line-up. They join stars including Sir Simon Rattle, Sheku Kanneh-mason, Nicola Benedetti and Anoushka Shankar.

BBC Four will show a selection of Late Night Proms from the archives, including the 2015 Ibiza Prom with Pete Tong and the 2017 tribute to the soul label Stax, which featured Booker T Jones and Sir Tom Jones.

It will also show the “groundbreaking” Radio 1Xtra Prom from 2015, which celebrated grime and hip hop music and featured Stormzy. On iplayer, the BBC has selected 10 “classic” Proms from past years. They include classical greats – works by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Benjamin Britten, Vaughan Williams and Bach – and family favourites such as the Doctor Who and Strictly Proms.

The BBC said: “The current situation with Covid-19 means the season we had

‘The current situation with Covid-19 means the season we had originally planned is sadly no longer possible’

originally planned is sadly no longer possible. Instead, the Proms in 2020 have been reconceived in a different format, but our aim remains the same – to create the world’s greatest classical music festival by reflecting world-class music making from leading artists around the globe.”

The live performances will begin on August 28 and cover the last fortnight of the festival, all taking place in an empty Royal Albert Hall.

The Last Night of the Proms will feature Golda Schultz, the South African soprano, and Dalia Stasevska, only the second woman in history to conduct the Last Night.