BBC Proms 2021 Programme Announced

The BBC Proms this summer will feature six weeks of live concerts from the Royal Albert Hall in London in its 150th-anniversary year. Audiences are welcomed back to enjoy 52 concerts featuring 30 orchestras and ensembles and more than 2,000 musicians, from Friday 30 July – Saturday 11 September 2021. Every note of the BBC Proms 2021 will be live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds, and 20 concerts will be broadcast on BBC TV and iPlayer.

The First Night of the Proms

The First Night of the Proms opens with Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music performed by a quartet of British singers with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska. The programme will also include the world premiere of When Soft Voices Die, by Sir James MacMillan and Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with leading organist Daniel Hyde.

Some of the British stars and emerging artists performing at the BBC Proms 2021 include Nicola Benedetti, Karen Cargill, Lucy Crowe, Sir Mark Elder, Benjamin Grosvenor, Steven Isserlis, Sally Matthews, Sir Simon Rattle, Christine Rice, Roderick Williams and Sir John Eliot Gardiner in his 60th Proms appearance.

Great international soloists and conductors alongside rising stars from across the globe will also be featured. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the only international orchestra at the festival this year, will perform the world premiere of George Benjamin’s Concerto For Orchestra, belatedly celebrating his 60th birthday last year.

The Kanneh-Masons will perform Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals

Camille Saint-Saëns, who died 100 years ago, is celebrated in a special family Prom. All seven talented Kanneh-Mason siblings will perform The Carnival of the Animals joined by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo who wrote new poems to accompany the musical suite.

Other composer anniversaries celebrated at the BBC Proms 2021 include Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Adès, Ruth Gipps, Josquin des Prez and Malcolm Arnold.

Over 50 of the greatest new classical artists will make their Proms debuts including Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, who topped the US and UK classical charts with his critically-acclaimed recording Debussy • Rameau, and British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso who topped the UK classical chart with his debut album Passione.

BBC Proms 2021 features music spanning over 500 years

The BBC Proms 2021 will present a repertoire of music spanning over 500 years including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s performance of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde; The Golden Age of Broadway with the BBC Concert Orchestra; Chineke! Orchestra returning for its fourth visit to the Proms; singer-songwriter Moses Sumney with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Creative Artist in Association Jules Buckley and jazz saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia.

Premieres of works by Thomas Adès, Mason Bates, George Benjamin, Charlotte Bray, Unsuk Chin, Laura Jurd, Daniel Kidane, George Lewis, Sir James MacMillan, Ella Milch-Sheriff, Samy Moussa, and Elizabeth Ogonek will be featured.

For the first time the BBC Proms will feature four unprogrammed mystery Proms to be revealed at a later date.

The Last Night of the BBC Proms will feature tenor Stuart Skelton and accordionist Ksenija Sidorova with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo.

For full details of the BBC Proms 2021 click here.

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