Prom 75 – Last Night of the Proms

Part of the BBC Proms.

Sir Andrew Davis, the much-loved former Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a veteran steersman of the Last Night, returns to direct the greatest annual party in classical music. The popular nautical theme of traditional favourites by Henry Wood and Thomas Arne is extended in Stanford’s Songs of the Sea, featuring star Canadian baritone Gerald Finley. Another British choral classic, Blest Pair of Sirens – honouring the ‘harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse’ – joins Jerusalem in the centenary year of Hubert Parry’s death. There’s a dash of Broadway in the touching ‘Soliloquy’ from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, in which the wife-battering Billy finds new eloquence while vowing to change his ways, and a more mischievous streak in Milhaud’s delightful suite Scaramouche. Roxanna Panufnik’s new commission rounds off a series of over 40 world, UK or London premieres this season, continuing the forward-looking vision of Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood. There will be one interval