BBC Proms - 2021

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BBC Proms: Season 75 - 22 Episode s

75x1 - First Night of the Proms: Part 1
July 30, 2021
Conductor Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra kick off a six-week season with Vaughan Williams’s ravishing Serenade to Music and Poulenc’s dazzling Organ Concerto. They’re joined by the BBC Singers and a cast of soloists, including soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn, tenor Allan Clayton and organist Daniel Hyde, for a celebration of the power of music to comfort and lift your spirits. Katie Derham presents from the Royal Albert Hall in London.
75x2 - First Night of the Proms: Part 2
July 30, 2021
Katie Derham presents from the Royal Albert Hall, as the opening concert of the 2021 Proms season continues in front of a live audience. Conductor Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform Sibelius’s thrilling Second Symphony. They are joined by soloists including soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and tenor Allan Clayton for the world premiere of When Soft Voices Die, a poignant piece for our times by Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan.
75x3 - Prom 4: An Evening of Mozart with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
August 1, 2021
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and their young Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev showcase Mozart’s final three symphonies – composed over a period of just two months in the summer of 1788.
75x4 - Prom 8: Gražinytė-Tyla Conducts the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
August 5, 2021
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla champion the music of a too-long neglected composer. A pupil of Vaughan Williams, Ruth Gipps started her career as an oboist with what was then the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1944, before becoming established as a composer. Her Symphony No. 2 takes a wide-screen, cinematic view of the Second World War, embracing exhilaration, anxiety and, finally, ecstatic rejoicing. Conflict of a very different kind runs through The Exterminating Angel Symphony by Thomas Adès (50 this year), inspired by Louis Buñuel’s Surrealist film. Brahms’s Third Symphony strikes a more autumnal tone, inspired by a visit to the River Rhine in 1883. The critic Eduard Hanslick pronounced it ‘artistically the most nearly perfect’ of the composer’s symphonies to date.
75x5 - Prom 5: Ryan Bancroft Conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
August 6, 2021
Musical borrowings, reworkings and reinventions run through this season’s Proms. The invisible thread linking tonight’s concert really begins with Bach. A lilting chaconne from his Cantata No. 150 underpins the finale of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, and the latter’s elegant synthesis of heart and head is itself the inspiration for American composer Elizabeth Ogonek’s Cloudline, a lyrical homage to ancient musical forms and techniques. The chaconne’s repeating patterns are echoed elsewhere in the circling bass line of Purcell’s powerful Lament from Dido and Aeneas. Cellist Guy Johnston is the soloist in anniversary-composer Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No .1.
75x6 - Prom 2: The Golden Age of Broadway
August 7, 2021
Smell the greasepaint and feel the blaze of those Broadway lights, as the BBC Concert Orchestra whisks you away for a night at the musicals. The toe-tapping favourites include songs from musicals including South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun and High Society, all performed by the ever-versatile BBC Concert Orchestra – and some special guest soloists.
75x7 - Prom 10: Nicola Benedetti and the NYOGB
August 8, 2021
Rising star Jonathon Heyward conducts the talented teenagers of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in one of the all-time symphonic greats. Propelling the symphony into the Romantic age, Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ is a celebration of scope and drama, a musical depiction of heroism that surges with pioneering spirit. Nicola Benedetti is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with its song-like slow movement – a work whose sardonic wit is balanced by a new lyricism that would come to dominate the composer’s later works. The Prom also includes a new NYOGB commission by British composer, jazz trumpeter and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, Laura Jurd.
75x8 - Prom 14/15: Stravinsky from Memory
August 13, 2021
Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra’s from-memory performances have become a thrilling recent fixture of the Proms. Now, following symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Shostakovich and Berlioz, they tackle their most audacious challenge yet: a complete performance of the colourful 1945 suite from Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird. Russian fairy tales and folk melodies collide with Stravinsky’s bold musical modernism to create a memorable score. Radio 3 presenter Tom Service introduces the work from the stage, exploring its textures and themes and dismantling its intricate musical narrative with the help of Collon and his musicians. The concert opens with another Russian classic: Rachmaninov’s virtuosic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Pavel Kolesnikov as soloist.
75x9 - Prom 17: Víkingur Ólafsson Plays Bach and Mozart
August 15, 2021
Award-winning Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson makes his much-anticipated Proms debut, as soloist in both Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in F minor, whose energised outer movements frame a ravishing central Adagio, and Mozart’s pioneering Piano Concerto K491, a rare minor-key work whose stormy, richly orchestrated music climaxes in a relentless dance. The Philharmonia Orchestra and its dynamic Finnish Principal Conductor Designate Santtu-Matias Rouvali frame the concert with two symphonies: Prokofiev’s playful ‘Classical’ Symphony, with its clever juxtaposition of traditional forms and contemporary colours, and the more loaded irony of Shostakovich’s compact Symphony No. 9.
75x10 - Prom 20: To Soothe the Aching Heart (A Night at the Opera)
August 19, 2021
A host of British opera stars join Ben Glassberg and the BBC Philharmonic for a night rich in emotion and drama. After a year of lockdowns and social distancing, the themes of isolation and loneliness as well as the joy of reunion have particular poignancy in excerpts from much-loved operas including Handel’s Rodelinda, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Puccini’s La bohème.
75x11 - Prom 22: Nubya Garcia
August 20, 2021
British saxophonist, composer, DJ and bandleader Nubya Garcia is one of the brightest of a new generation of jazz talent, drawing comparison with greats such as Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. Named a ‘major voice’ by The New York Times, she has devised a brand of ‘eclectic, danceable, political jazz’ that draws on influences from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Tonight marks her Proms debut.
75x12 - Prom 26: Sir Simon Rattle Conducts the London Symphony Orchestra
August 22, 2021
The London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle mark 2021’s Stravinsky anniversary with a series of symphonic snapshots. We follow Stravinsky’s view of the symphony from the experimental, colour-blocked ‘ritual’ of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, through the transitional Symphony in C – reflecting both the composer’s European past and his American future – to arrive at the bold Symphony in Three Movements.
75x13 - Prom 28: Chineke! Orchestra
August 26, 2021
The Chineke! Orchestra returns for its fourth visit to the Proms, celebrating diversity in composers as well as performers. Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s overture to his popular cantata based on the tale of a Native American leader quotes the spiritual ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen’. There are further meetings of African and European musical styles in Nigerian composer Fela Sowande’s African Suite and the piano concerto by Florence Price, the first female African-American composer to win renown in America. By contrast, Coleridge-Taylor’s Symphony, written as a 20-year old student of Stanford at London’s Royal College of Music, reveals the influence of his hero, Dvořák.
75x14 - Prom 29/30: Joshua Bell's Seasons: Vivaldi vs Piazzolla
August 27, 2021
From an icy Italian winter to the heady, sensual warmth of a South American summer: violinist Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on a musical journey through the sights and sounds of two continents and four very different seasons. Inspired by Vivaldi’s best-known work, Piazzolla – Argentina’s 20th-century tango king, whose 100th anniversary we celebrate this year – created his own response, complete with musical quotations. While Vivaldi’s virtuosic concertos celebrate contrast – the freshness of spring, with its sudden thunderstorms, versus the languid heat of summer – Piazzolla’s musical landscape remains more constant, always swaying to the pervasive rhythm of the tango.
75x15 - Prom 34/35: Family Prom - The Carnival of the Animals with the Kanneh-Masons
August 29, 2021
Author Michael Morpurgo joins the seven talented Kanneh-Mason siblings and starry musical friends for this special Family Prom. Saint-Saëns’s much-loved suite The Carnival of the Animals – a musical menagerie packed with braying donkeys, energetic kangaroos, a serene swan and an aquarium of glinting fish – gets a fresh update in witty new poems by Morpurgo.
75x16 - Prom 31: George Lewis & Beethoven
September 2, 2021
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov pair Beethoven’s dramatic concert aria ‘Ah! perfido’ with the Second Symphony – a work whose vitality and ‘smiling’ mood belie the private struggles and despair of a composer wrestling with hearing loss – with a new commission from celebrated American composer George Lewis. This world premiere blends a conventional orchestra with spatialised electronics, exploiting the unique space of the Royal Albert Hall to create, in Lewis’s words, ‘a medium for meditation on what processes of decolonisation might sound like’.
75x17 - Prom 25: Moses Sumney Meets Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
September 3, 2021
Blending soul, jazz, art-pop and spoken word, singer-songwriter Moses Sumney defies traditional categories. His ever-evolving voice has channelled political rage and emotional optimism into everything from sprawling orchestral tracks to electronica. Here he performs songs from his albums Aromanticism and græ in new orchestral arrangements, masterminded by Jules Buckley.
75x18 - Prom 38: Sir John Eliot Gardiner Conducts the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists
September 5, 2021
Sir John Eliot Gardiner makes his 60th Proms appearance directing his own Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in Handel’s vividly theatrical Dixit Dominus – a concerto for choir that blazes with virtuosity and colour. It’s paired with Bach’s Easter cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden – a fiery, dramatic setting of Luther’s popular hymn. Mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg is the soloist in the young Handel’s cantata of praise to the Virgin Mary, Donna, che in ciel, containing music the composer later borrowed for his opera Agrippina.
75x19 - Prom 42: John Wilson Conducts the Sinfonia of London
September 9, 2021
The Sinfonia of London makes its much-anticipated official concert debut under John Wilson, who re-established the ensemble in 2018. Following on from their award-winning recording, this orchestral ‘army of generals’ brings with it Korngold’s stirring, filmic Symphony in F sharp. It’s part of a musical bird’s-eye view of 19th- and 20th-century Vienna that also includes the overture to Die Fledermaus and Ravel’s dizzying La valse.
75x21 - Prom 47: Bach’s St Matthew Passion
September 10, 2021
Bach’s crowning masterpiece, the St Matthew Passion combines moments of extraordinary fragility and tenderness with raw choral power and explosive jubilation, bitter grief with passages of consolation. With double chorus and orchestra, its scope and ambition is vast – a piece made for the Royal Albert Hall. Following on from their gripping account of Handel’s Theodora in 2018, period-instrument ensemble Arcangelo and Director Jonathan Cohen return to the Proms, joined by a glittering line-up of soloists including Roderick Williams and rising star Stuart Jackson.
75x22 - Last Night of the Proms 2021 - Part 1
September 11, 2021
With his ‘thrilling vocal heroics’ and ‘magnetic stage presence’, Stuart Skelton is one of the great tenors of his generation, a regular in all the major international opera houses. The Australian singer is joined by charismatic Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova for the climax of the 2021 festival – a musical celebration like no other.
75x23 - Last Night of the Proms - Part 2
September 11, 2021
Katie Derham hosts continued live coverage from the Royal Albert Hall, at the climax of the world’s greatest classical music festival. Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova and Australian tenor Stuart Skelton join Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers for a jubilant programme including music by Florence Price, Latin flavours from Piazzolla and Troilo, English folk courtesy of Percy Grainger and, of course, all the traditional favourites including Rule, Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem. Katie is joined by special guests Gareth Malone and Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

75x1 - First Night of the Proms: Part 1

75x2 - First Night of the Proms: Part 2

75x3 - Prom 4: An Evening of Mozart with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra

75x4 - Prom 8: Gražinytė-Tyla Conducts the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

75x5 - Prom 5: Ryan Bancroft Conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

75x6 - Prom 2: The Golden Age of Broadway

75x7 - Prom 10: Nicola Benedetti and the NYOGB

75x8 - Prom 14/15: Stravinsky from Memory

75x9 - Prom 17: Víkingur Ólafsson Plays Bach and Mozart

75x10 - Prom 20: To Soothe the Aching Heart (A Night at the Opera)

75x11 - Prom 22: Nubya Garcia

75x12 - Prom 26: Sir Simon Rattle Conducts the London Symphony Orchestra

75x13 - Prom 28: Chineke! Orchestra

75x14 - Prom 29/30: Joshua Bell's Seasons: Vivaldi vs Piazzolla

75x15 - Prom 34/35: Family Prom - The Carnival of the Animals with the Kanneh-Masons

75x16 - Prom 31: George Lewis & Beethoven

75x17 - Prom 25: Moses Sumney Meets Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

75x18 - Prom 38: Sir John Eliot Gardiner Conducts the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists

75x19 - Prom 42: John Wilson Conducts the Sinfonia of London

75x21 - Prom 47: Bach’s St Matthew Passion

75x22 - Last Night of the Proms 2021 - Part 1

75x23 - Last Night of the Proms - Part 2

S0: Specials

S1: 1947

S2: 1948

S3: 1949

S4: 1950

S5: 1951

S6: 1952

S7: 1953

S8: 1954

S9: 1955

S10: 1956

S11: 1957

S12: 1958

S13: 1959

S14: 1960

S15: 1961

S16: 1962

S17: 1963

S18: 1964

S19: 1965

S20: 1966

S21: 1967

S22: 1968

S23: 1969

S24: 1970

S25: 1971

S26: 1972

S27: 1973

S28: 1974

S29: 1975

S30: 1976

S31: 1977

S32: 1978

S33: 1979

S34: 1980

S35: 1981

S36: 1982

S37: 1983

S38: 1984

S39: 1985

S40: 1986

S41: 1987

S42: 1988

S43: 1989

S44: 1990

S45: 1991

S46: 1992

S47: 1993

S48: 1994

S49: 1995

S50: 1996

S51: 1997

S52: 1998

S53: 1999

S54: 2000

S55: 2001

S56: 2002

S57: 2003