BBC Proms — Season 71

Aired 14 July 2017 • 60 min

BBC Proms 2017 kicks off in style tonight at the Royal Albert Hall. Beethoven's dramatic Third Piano Concerto is performed by star soloist Igor Levit with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Edward Gardner. This opening concert of the world's biggest music festival also includes a raucous new work by Tom Coult, St John's Dance, the first of 13 world premieres at Proms 2017. Presented by Katie Derham.

Aired 14 July 2017 • 60 min

The First Night of the Proms culminates with Harmonium, a dazzling choral work from American music titan John Adams, who celebrates his 70th birthday this year. Harmonium is a thrilling and captivating setting of poetry by John Donne and Emily Dickinson, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Proms Youth Choir, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Aired 16 July 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 4: Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapel Berlin Inspirational maestro Daniel Barenboim makes his second appearance in this opening weekend of the 2017 Proms season. Conducting his German orchestra Staatskappelle Berlin, Barenboim brings an entirely English programme to the Royal Albert Hall, including Elgar's poignant Second Symphony and the UK premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Deep Time, a work dedicated to the memory of Birtwistle's friend and colleague Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Aired 21 July 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 8: Celebrating John Williams Celebrate the 85th birthday of one of the world’s favourite film composers in an evening of big emotions and even bigger melodies.

Aired 23 July 2017 • 105 min

Broadcast of Prom 3: Bernard Haitink conducts Mozart and Schumann BBC Proms legend Bernard Haitink returns to the Royal Albert Hall to conduct his beloved Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Acclaimed German violinist Isabelle Faust plays Mozart's joyous Third Violin Concerto, which is paired tonight with his groundbreaking Prague Symphony. Schumann's Second Symphony closes the programme.

Aired 28 July 2017 • 135 min

Broadcast of Prom 13: Malcolm Sargent's 500th Prom Nicknamed 'Flash Harry', Sir Malcolm Sargent was the chief conductor of the Proms for two decades, bringing the concerts to TV audiences for the first time. Marking the 50th anniversary of his death, conductor Sir Andrew Davis, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and sensational young pianist Beatrice Rana recreate Sargent's 500th Prom from 1966. Alongside Schumann and Berlioz, there's a feast of English music, including works by Elgar and Holst, culminating in Britten's much-loved Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Aired 28 July 2017 • 85 min

Broadcast of Prom 15: The Songs of Scott Walker (1967–70) Jarvis Cocker leads an eclectic line-up in this late night tribute to the 60s cult icon Scott Walker. Conductor Jules Buckley has arranged tracks from Walker's four eponymous albums, performed with live orchestral backing for the very first time. Featuring Jules Buckley's Heritage Orchestra and London Contemporary Voices.

Aired 30 July 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 21: Beethoven – Symphony No. 9, ‘Choral’ Beethoven's much-loved Ninth Symphony, with its passionate plea for unity, is performed by the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales and the CBSO Chorus, conducted by Xian Zhang. Its companion piece is the European premiere of A European Requiem, written in 2015 by the great Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan.

Aired 30 July 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 9: Beethoven – Fidelio Beethoven’s only opera is a passionate musical protest against political oppression that premiered in the wake of the French Revolution. Stuart Skelton stars as the imprisoned Florestan, with soprano Ricarda Merbeth as Leonore. Juanjo Mena conducts.

Aired 4 August 2017 • 125 min

Broadcast of Prom 27: Ella and Dizzy: A Centenary Tribute A special Proms tribute to jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, in the centenary year of their births. Grammy Award-winning singer Dianne Reeves and sensational trumpeter James Morrison perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of Hollywood music legend John Mauceri, as they showcase some of the music most closely associated with Ella and Dizzy.

Aired 6 August 2017 • 80 min

Broadcast of Prom 28: National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain returns to the BBC Proms under the baton of renowned composer and conductor Thomas Ades. The formidable young musicians perform Stravinsky's thrilling ballet score The Rite of Spring, the London premiere of Mural by Francisco Coll and Ades's own work Polaris.

Aired 11 August 2017 • 175 min

Broadcast of Prom 35: John Wilson conducts Oklahoma! Cowboys and farm girls are let loose in the Royal Albert Hall as the John Wilson Orchestra transports us to the Great American Plains in Oklahoma! Rodgers and Hammerstein's first ever musical was an instant hit when it premiered on Broadway in 1943 and it's not hard to see why - it's chock-full of toe-tapping classics, including Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', People Will Say We're in Love, and of course the title song itself. With a stellar cast, sensational dance numbers and the unique energy of the John Wilson Orchestra, the magic of the original lives on in 2017.

Aired 13 August 2017 • 140 min

Broadcast of Prom 37: Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No. 3 This all-Rachmaninov programme features two of the composer's greatest and most-loved works performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under conductor Thomas Dausgaard. Alexander Gavrylyuk is the soloist for the famously demanding Third Piano Concerto, which is followed by the capricious and impassioned Second Symphony. The Latvian Radio Choir joins the line-up, setting both pieces alongside the Russian Orthodox chants that the composer would have known.

Aired 22 July 2017

Broadcast of Prom 10: Aurora Orchestra – Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ The fearlessly brilliant members of Aurora Orchestra put Beethoven's revolutionary Eroica Symphony under the Proms microscope. Presenter Tom Service and conductor Nicholas Collon perform a lively and revealing on-stage dissection of the score that changed musical history. The Prom culminates with a full performance of the symphony, which the orchestra will play entirely from memory.

Aired 18 August 2017 • 80 min

Broadcast of Prom 41: Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar Two goliaths of 20th-century music, Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass, recorded the studio album Passages together in 1989. The result was a unique fusion of Hindustani sitar music with American minimalism. Tonight the album is performed live and in full for the first time, with Shankar's daughter Anoushka playing the sitar alongside a dazzling array of Indian soloists and the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Karen Kamensek.

Aired 20 August 2017 • 160 min

Broadcast of Prom 49: Bach’s St John Passion In one of a series of Proms performances marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, John Butt directs his Dunedin Consort in a complete performance of Bach's powerful St John Passion, with Nicolas Mulroy as the Evangelist and Matthew Brook as Jesus. Reflecting the church setting for which it was written, the performance includes congregational singing from the Proms audience.

Aired 25 August 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 53: Beneath the Underdog: Charles Mingus Revisited A giant in 20th-century jazz, the legendary composer, bandleader and bass player Charles Mingus is celebrated by conductor Jules Buckley and his Metropole Orkest. Plus a brilliant line-up of soloists, including saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, trumpeter Christian Scott and singer Kandace Springs, are on the bill.

Aired 27 August 2017 • 110 min

Broadcast of Prom 50: Beethoven, Stravinsky and Gerald Barry Katie Derham introduces the first of six weekly programmes celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Proms, featuring some of the most memorable concerts from the unrivalled Proms archive. Katie is joined by conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla to mark Beethoven’s 250th birthday year with another chance to see her acclaimed Proms appearance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2017. As well as a thrillingly fresh interpretation of Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony, the concert also includes his Leonore Overture No 3 and a world premiere by Irish maverick Gerald Barry, performed by tenor Allan Clayton. All this alongside Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major performed by Leila Josefowicz.

Aired 1 September 2017 • 135 min

Broadcast of Prom 57: Swing No End Singer and broadcaster Clare Teal heads the charge in this big band spectacular. Travel back in time with this rip-roaring Prom to the 1930s and 1940s and celebrate the irrepressible music of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Stan Kenton and more, plus a special tribute to the unassuming giant of the big band world, Mary Lou Williams. Band leaders Guy Barker and Winston Rollins take to the stage alongside their eponymous big bands with help from a myriad of guest artists.

Aired 1 September 2017 • 78 min

Broadcast of Prom 65: Stax Records: 50 Years of Soul Founded in 1957, Memphis-based Stax Records was synonymous with southern soul - a distinctive blend of funk, gospel and R&B that brought listeners across America together at a time of racial conflict and political unrest. In this Late Night Prom, Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra pay tribute to the pioneering label and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stax/Volt Revue's first tour of the UK, in a concert featuring some of the label's greatest surviving artists. Stax legends Booker T Jones and Sam Moore appear alongside Sir Tom Jones, a longtime fan and interpreter of the Stax songbook. Both Jones and Moore were part of the 1967 tour and join fellow Stax artists William Bell, Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd in this unique coming-together. They are joined by more fans of the Stax sound in Beverley Knight, James Morrison, Nadia Rose & Sweetie Irie and Ruby Turner.

Aired 3 September 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 46: Schoenberg – Gurrelieder In one of the highlights of this year's Proms season, Sir Simon Rattle brings Schoenberg's colossal Gurrelieder to the Royal Albert Hall, uniting the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, CBSO Chorus, Orfeo Catala and a stunning line-up of soloists including Eva-Maria Westbroek, Simon O'Neill and speaker Thomas Quasthoff. An epic love story conceived on a Wagnerian scale, it reaches its climax with a truly unforgettable depiction of sunrise.

Aired 3 September 2017 • 140 min

Broadcast of Prom 55: Classical Music of India and Pakistan To mark the 70th anniversary of independence from British rule and the subsequent Partition of India from Pakistan and Bangladesh, this special late-night Prom celebrates the power of music to heal and unify. Curated by the cultural heritage trust Darbar, it brings together virtuoso soloists and world-leading groups representing the three great traditions of classical music from India and Pakistan. From late evening into the night, the concert takes us from the Hindustani music of north India to the Carnatic music of the south, and leads to an ecstatic climax with devotional Sufi qawwali from Pakistan.

Aired 7 September 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 73: Sir András Schiff performs Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier After his extraordinary performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations at the 2015 Proms, world-renowned pianist Sir Andras Schiff returns to the Royal Albert Hall for another solo Bach recital. He performs Book One of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, a cycle that he will complete next year with Book Two. Almost three centuries after Bach composed his two sequences of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys, 'the 48' remains a touchstone for all great pianists.

Aired 8 September 2017 • 120 min

Broadcast of Prom 70: Missy Mazzoli, Bartók and Dvořák Bartok's sparkling Second Piano Concerto and Dvorak's Eighth Symphony are in the spotlight as American pianist Jeremy Denk joins conductor Karina Canellakis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The concert opens with Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) by young American composer Missy Mazzoli, music 'in the shape of the solar system'.

Aired 8 September 2017 • 86 min

Broadcast of Prom 62: Chineke! The UK’s first majority BME orchestra, Chineke!, makes its Proms debut. 2016 BBC Young Musician winner, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, is the soloist, and the concert also includes works by composers George Walker and Hannah Kendall.

Aired 9 September 2017

The BBC Proms 2017 season comes to a close with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their Finnish chief conductor Sakari Oramo leading proceedings live from London's Royal Albert Hall. Soprano superstar Nina Stemme performs music from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers mark 100 years of Finnish independence with a performance of Sibelius's glorious Finlandia and Kodaly's Budavari Te Deum is performed by soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo Christine Rice, tenor Ben Johnson and bass John Relyea. Also on the programme is the world premiere of Finnish composer Lotta Wennakoski's Flounce, as well as a performance of Malcolm Sargent's An Impression on a Windy Day. Presented by Katie Derham.

Aired 9 September 2017 • 90 min

The Last Night of the Proms celebrations continue live from the Royal Albert Hall in London. John Adams's seventieth birthday is marked with the London premiere of his exhilarating Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance, and solo star soprano Nina Stemme performs Weill's Surabaya Johnny and The Saga of Jenny, followed by Gershwin's The Lorelei. The programme takes a trip around the UK with Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs, with contributions from the Proms in the Park events in Swansea, Glasgow and Belfast, before the BBC Proms 2017 is brought to a rousing close with Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and BBC Singers are conducted by Sakari Oramo. Presented by Katie Derham.

Aired 22 July 2017 • 40 min

Katie Derham returns with the magazine show Proms Extra to review the opening week of Proms 2017 with her special guests. This week's review includes Elgar's Second Symphony conducted by Daniel Barenboim and a trip to the movies courtesy of the iconic John Williams.

Aired 29 July 2017 • 40 min

Join Katie Derham as she looks back at the week's events from the Proms, with conductors Xian Zhang, Jules Buckley and violinist Tai Murray. This programme focuses on Walton's Facade from the Malcolm Sargent Prom and celebrates the genius of Scott Walker. Plus there is Chord of the Week with David Owen Norris.

Aired 5 August 2017 • 40 min

Katie Derham presents the companion guide to the Proms. Tonight's show has the tenor Stuart Skelton, soprano Ailish Tynan and gospel conductor and composer Ken Burton discussing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and a Proms centenary tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie.

Aired 12 August 2017 • 40 min

Proms Extra continues to explore the Proms season as it passes the halfway mark. Katie Derham is joined by harpist Catrin Finch and singer Julian Ovenden, and the show turns the spotlight on the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and their performance of Thomas Ades's Polaris, John Wilson Orchestra's Oklahoma! and David Owen Norris returns with Chord of the Week.

Aired 19 August 2017 • 40 min

Katie Derham is joined in the studio by baritone Roderick Williams and composer Hannah Kendall. Music featured comes from Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, Aurora Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's Eroica and the Ravi Shankar/Philip Glass collaboration Passages.

Aired 26 August 2017 • 40 min

Katie Derham reviews the sixth full week of Proms activity in this penulitimate episode of Proms Extra. She is joined by jazz saxophonist Soweto Kinch and conductor John Butt to discuss Bach's St John Passion, performed in week five of the Proms by John Butt's Dunedin Consort, and the Charles Mingus Prom, featuring Kandace Springs, Shabaka Hutchings and Christian Scott. David Owen Norris offers another Chord of the Week.

Aired 10 September 2017 • 40 min

Katie Derham presents the final Proms Extra for the Proms season. On this show, she is joined by percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, star saxophonist Jess Gillam and acclaimed pianist Stephen Hough as they cast an eye over Stravinsky's Violin Concerto, The Big Band Prom and the Jools Holland Stax Prom.

Aired 27 August 2017 • 14 min

The CBSO perform Beethoven's dramatic overture, celebrating the triumph of truth over tyranny in music of radiant beauty. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts. (performance from Prom #50)

Aired 27 August 2017 • 7 min

Tenor Allan Clayton is the soloist in the world premiere of Gerald Barry's new work, inspired by revolutionary events in Canada’s history. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts the CBSO. (performance from Prom #50)

Aired 27 August 2017 • 23 min

Violinist Leila Josefowicz performs Stravinsky's fiercely brilliant neo-Classical concerto, with the CBSO and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. (Performance from Prom #50)

Aired 8 September 2017 • 10 min

Sheku Kanneh-Masson performs an arrangement of the Hungarian Rhapsody by the 19th-Century Bohemian cellist and composer David Popper. (Performance from Prom #62)

Aired 8 September 2017 • 10 min

World premiere of BBC commission of Hannah Kendall's The Spark Catchers which takes inspiration from the urgent energy of Lemn Sissay's poem of the same name. (Performance from Prom #62)

Aired 8 September 2017 • 17 min

Rimsky-Korsakov's popular 'Capriccio on Spanish Themes' is based on five lively and exuberant Spanish folk tunes. (Performance from Prom #62)

Aired 8 September 2017 • 10 min

The European premiere of Missy Mazzoli's mesmeric Sinfonia - music 'in the shape of the solar system' that weaves and coils itself in a sequence of pulsing loops.