BBC Proms 2025: 86 concerts, 80 debut soloists, and a return to overnight music-making – gramophone.co.uk

Receive a weekly collection of news, features and reviews
Est 1923
Thursday, April 24, 2025
The 2025 Proms season runs from 18 July to 13 September, with a programme featuring world premieres, visiting international orchestras, landmark anniversaries, and the festival’s first overnight Prom in more than 40 years
The BBC Proms 2025 season has been announced, offering 86 concerts over eight weeks, with 72 events at the Royal Albert Hall in London and 14 venues across the UK, including first-time visits to Sunderland and Bradford. The season opens with Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers in a programme that includes Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto (with Lisa Batiashvili), and the world premiere of The Elements by Errollyn Wallen, concluding with Vaughan Williams’s Sancta Civitas.
Elim Chan conducts the Last Night of the Proms, with soloists Alison Balsom and Louise Alder, and new works by Camille Pépin and Rachel Portman. Among the 19 world, European or UK premieres are BBC commissions from composers including John Rutter, Tom Coult and Mark Simpson, and international premieres from Sofia Gubaidulina, Anthony Davis and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
The Proms welcomes 21 visiting orchestras, among them the Vienna Philharmonic (Franz Welser-Möst), Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Andris Nelsons), and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Klaus Mäkelä). Major soloists this season include Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, Sir András Schiff, and Yunchan Lim.
Operatic offerings include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with English National Opera, Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Sir Antonio Pappano and the LSO, and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro from Glyndebourne. Choral highlights include Delius’s A Mass of Life, Vaughan Williams’s Sancta Civitas, and Handel’s Alexander’s Feast with Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra.
Piano highlights include Yunchan Lim in Rachmaninov’s Fourth Concerto, Bruce Liu’s Proms debut with Tchaikovsky’s Second, and Benjamin Grosvenor performing Ravel. Nicholas McCarthy – the world’s only professional one-handed concert pianist – makes history in Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand, and soloists such as Alexandre Kantorow, Mariam Batsashvili, and Lukas Sternath appear in works by Saint-Saëns, Mozart and Grieg.
The season marks 50 years since the death of Dmitri Shostakovich with performances of five of his symphonies and features tributes to Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Arvo Pärt, who turns 90 this year. The Aurora Orchestra returns to perform Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony from memory.
Anna Lapwood curates the first overnight Prom since 1983, running from 11pm to 7am and featuring pianist Hayato Sumino, cellist Anastasia Kobekina, the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, and Barokksolistene.
There are concerts themed around non-classical genres and collaborations with BBC brands: Claudia Winkleman hosts The Traitors Prom, Trevor Nelson presents The Soul Revolution Prom, and Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi makes his Proms debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Every concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds. Twenty-five Proms will be televised across BBC One, Two, and iPlayer.
For more information on programmes and tickets, visit bbc.co.uk/proms
The American Chief Conductor of the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra talks about music in Hamburg, the…
This issue features interviews with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the Takács Quartet and…
As the Takács Quartet marks 50 glorious years, Lindsay Kemp hears from its players about the group’s…

                              
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.
Gramophone is brought to you by Mark Allen Group Gramophone is part of MA Education & Music Ltd
About Mark Allen Group | International licensing

source