With the 2016 BBC Proms now underway, we look forward to hearing performances and new commissions by several of our artists.
Two major new commissions lead the way. Michael Berkeley’s Violin Concerto written for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Jac van Steen is premiered with soloist Chloë Hanslip at the Royal Albert Hall in Prom 16. David Sawer’s latest work, April \ March, is given its first performance on August 20 as part of the Proms at… series which takes concerts outside the Royal Albert Hall. Performed by the London Sinfonietta, this work will debut in its concert form at The Roundhouse in Camden and is a co-commission with The John Drummond Trust. This concert also includes Harrison Birtwistle’s The Message. Taking classical music further outside the confines of the concert hall, three of Steve Reich’s works are presented in a Multi-story Car Park in Peckham on September 3.
Robert Levin appears as the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prom 17, continuing his long collaboration with conductor Sir Roger Norrington. Pianist Louis Lortie appears as a recitalist in the Chamber Prom series at Cadogan Hall performing music by Rossini, Fauré, Poulenc and Liszt on August 22.
David Hill conducts the BBC Singers, for whom he is Chief Conductor, in Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle in the magnificent surroundings of the Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich on August 6. He is joined by tenor soloist Peter Auty.
Baritone David Wilson-Johnson appears in Prom 32 for his 46th Prom, performing the role of the Narrator in Schoenberg’s stirring work A Survivor from Warsaw with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Finally, mezzo-soprano Anna Harvey makes her BBC Proms debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo at the Last Night of the Proms in a line-up of young rising stars who perform Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music in front of a worldwide TV audience of millions.
