BBC PROMS 2018: festival guide

At a Glance

For full concert details, see

FIRST NIGHT LIGHTS

Launching our celebrations marking 100 years since the end of the First World War, Five Telegrams is an ambitious new work fusing music by Anna Meredith inspired by modes of communication, including telegrams, codes and ciphers with spectacular visual projections created by 59 Productions.

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ANNA MEREDITH

(Image credit: Mark Kean)

WINNERS REUNION

Since its foundation 40 years ago, BBC Young Musician has discovered a plethora of leading young performers, many of whom have now taken their place on the international stage. We welcome an array of former winners and finalists in a special Prom marking the anniversary.

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BBC YOUNG MUSICIAN

(Image credit: BBC)

SYMBOLISM AND SPELLS

Two complete operas Debussys enigmatic Pellas and Mlisande and Ravels enchanting Lenfant et les sortilges sit at the heart of a survey of French music, inspired by the centenary year of Debussys death.

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MARY GARDEN AS MLISANDE

(Image credit: Bibliothque Nationale, Paris/akg-images)

PARRY AND HIS PUPILS

One hundred years after the composers death, Hubert Parrys Fifth Symphony an exploration into the human condition is heard alongside works by Vaughan Williams and Holst both of whom studied at Londons Royal College of Music with the composer, whose Jerusalem remains a Last Night of the Proms staple.

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RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS AND GUSTAV HOLST

TEN PIECES PROMS

The BBCs nationwide initiative, aimed at encouraging schoolchildren of all ages to get creative with classical music, returns to the Proms for its fourth year, with an exciting journey through music from Purcell to the present day and creative responses selected from the work of schools around the country.

See also

TEN PIECES PROM, 2017

(Image credit: Guy Levi/BBC)

BAROQUE CON BRIO

Austrian soprano Anna Prohaska and Italian period-instrument ensemble Il Giardino Armonico make their Proms debuts in a Late Night Prom exploring Baroque instrumental works as well as operatic depictions of dramatic monarchs Dido and Cleopatra.

ANNA PROHASKA

(Image credit: Harald Hoffmann)

TREADING NEW GROUND

A celebration of folk music from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with leading lights from a new generation of innovative folk artists, collaborating with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

JULIE FOWLIS

(Image credit: David Williams/ArenaPAL)

INSIDE SHOSTAKOVICH

BBC Radio 3s Tom Service and Aurora Orchestra Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon return to deconstruct and poke around Dmitry Shostakovichs Symphony No. 9 before it is reassembled in a complete performance played from memory.

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DMITRY SHOSTAKOVICH

(Image credit: Sputnik/akg-images)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

As part of our celebrations marking the centenary year of Leonard Bernsteins birth, John Wilson conducts the composers two most popular Broadway musicals West Side Story and On the Town which both see the Big Apple itself play a lead role.

See also

WEST SIDE STORY

(Image credit: Bridgeman Images)

LUNCHTIME DAZZLE

The astonishing American JACK Quartet makes its Proms debut with a bold programme in the Proms at Cadogan Hall chamber music series, pairing two scintillating classics by Iannis Xenakis with two world premieres.

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IANNIS XENAKIS

(Image credit: Louis Monier/Bridgeman Images)

BALLET DOUBLE

One hundred this year, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande makes its Proms debut with a concert featuring two colourful Ballets Russes works: Debussys Jeux, in which a game of tennis takes an erotic turn, and Stravinskys tale of the lovelorn Russian puppet Petrushka.

See also

VASLAV NIJINSKY AS PETRUSHKA

(Image credit: Alamy)

D I DONATO SINGS BERLIOZ

Lustrous American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato takes the dramatic solo role in Berliozs La mort de Cloptre (The Death of Cleopatra), in an all-Berlioz programme conducted by todays foremost interpreter of the composer, Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

See also

JOYCE D I DONATO

(Image credit: Nick Heavican)

Contents

BBC Proms Director DAVID PICKARD introduces the 2018 festival

One hundred years after Debussys death, CAROLINE POTTER explores what inspired him and his Parisian contemporaries

GAIL HILSON WOLDU celebrates the prodigious composing talent of Nadia Boulangers trailblazing younger sister Lili

As four major European orchestras mark anniversaries at the Proms, PETROC TRELAWNY traces their individual evolutions

Marking Leonard Bernsteins centenary, NIGEL SIMEONE celebrates his legacy as a composer

EDWARD SECKERSON considers Bernsteins conducting style and his compulsive need to immerse himself completely in the music

Focusing on Leonard Bernstein as a teacher, SOPHIE REDFERN outlines how his eternal curiosity inspired generations of students

VICTORIA WILLIAMSON explains what studies reveal about predictors of musical ability

A round-up of the many free talks, discussions, readings, films and other events that complement this years Proms, by KIMON DALTAS

Photographer DAMIEN DEMOLDER reveals four Proms performers in rehearsal, showing their close connection to their instruments

Marking 100 years since the end of the First World War, KATE KENNEDY considers how composers of the time created acts of musical remembrance