The Proms: Top ten concerts
Friday, 18 July 2008
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Prom 2
Nigel Kennedy plays the Elgar Violin Concerto; Andrew Kennedy (no relation)
sings Finzi's Intimations of Immortality. The late-night Prom has the Nigel
Kennedy Quintet from Krakow – top-notch jazz with a powerful Polish accent.
Tomorrow
Prom 4
Folk Day, with everything from Kathryn Tickell to Hungary's Muzsikas and a
spot of Berio. The afternoon Prom is free, and begins at 3.30pm. Arrive at
10am to join either the Proms Folk Family Orchestra or the Chorus to learn
folk songs; unwind at Folk in the Park in Kensington Gardens at noon. Bella
Hardy, Martin Simpson and Bellowhead give the evening concert – and the
ceilidh is at 10pm.
20 July
Prom 19
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted by Vassily Petrenko, making his
Proms debut with a Kenneth Hesketh premiere, Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances
and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4.
1 August
Prom 20
Stockhausen Day. Feeling brave? Take in the whole mini-festival, starting at
1pm with a double bill of films, then a discussion, and two concerts
featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra (David Robertson conducting) and, at
10pm, the Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier in Stimmung.
2 August
Prom 38
Daniel Barenboim conducts The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, his band of young
musicians drawn from Israel and Arabic nations. They give two concerts: the
full orchestra in Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante, Schoenberg's Variations for
Orchestra and Brahms's Symphony No 4, and, in the Late Night Prom, Boulez's
Mémoriale and Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. Arrive extra early.
14 August
Prom 46
The London Symphony Orchestra play the complete music of Tchaikovsky's
Sleeping Beauty.
20 August
Prom 50
Bach's St John Passion, with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque
Soloists, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. At 10pm cellist Jian Wang
plays three Bach suites, and there's an all-Bach organ recital by Simon
Preston at 4pm.
24 August
Prom 54
Vaughan Williams galore; the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis play
the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, Job: A Masque for Dancing, the
Serenade to Music and the Ninth Symphony.
26 August
Prom 68
The London Philharmonic Orchestra pairs Rimsky-Korsakov's one-act opera
Kashchey the Immortal with Stravinsky's The Firebird. Expect wizardry from
conductor Vladimir Jurowski.
5 September
Prom 70
A rare chance to hear Messiaen's opera Saint Francis of Assisi, with the
Netherlands Opera and The Hague Philharmonic. Messiaen's ornithological
obsessions make this a twitcher's delight.
7 September
