18:45 Fri 18 Jul 2025 Royal Albert Hall.

https://lnkd.in/dteRhrS2.

‘The crash of the seas, the crumbling of city walls and a glimpse of the heavens: all come together in the 2025 First Night. There’s a Scottish sound-picture from Mendelssohn and cool Nordic grandeur from Sibelius. Errollyn Wallen harnesses primal forces in her colourful new orchestral commission, while visions from the Book of Revelation are the starting point for Vaughan Williams’s Sancta civitas.’

At last some joy!

And for those who meanwhile reminisce – https://lnkd.in/dmPET-QR

Look out later in the season for BBC Proms: John Wilson Conducts Bernstein and Ravel – Friday 12 September 2025
7:30pm, Doors: 6:30pm: https://lnkd.in/dDVSjG52

‘Critics have praised their Proms performances as ‘breathtaking’, ‘blazing’ and ‘simply as good as it gets’. Now John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London double down with a passion-soaked programme of 20th-century orchestral showpieces. Love is the theme of a Prom that opens with history’s greatest seducer, Don Juan, in Strauss’s swashbuckling tone-poem and closes with the sensuous, diaphanous textures of Ravel’s ballet Daphnis and Chloe.

At the centre is one of Bernstein’s most lyrical orchestral works. James Ehnes is the soloist in Serenade – a violin concerto by another name that muses on, and interrogates, the nature of love itself.’

The range of talent performing at the BBC Proms this season is simply dazzling!

Look out also for:

·        ‘The Great American Songbook and Beyond with Samara Joy’ – 19:00 Sat 19 Jul 2025 Royal Albert Hall:

‘A No. 1 album and a double Grammy-win in 2023 put Samara Joy on the map, establishing the young American artist as ‘the next jazz sensation’ and ‘a legend in the making’, regularly compared to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Fresh from another double win at this year’s Grammys, Joy makes a much-anticipated Proms debut, introducing audiences to her electric combination of youthful energy and old-soul musical style with classic songs and unique twists on instrumental classics from across jazz and its fringes, from bossa nova to the Great American Songbook. She salutes figures including Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus and Oscar Peterson.’

·        ‘Arooj Aftab and Ibrahim Maalouf – 19:30 Tue 29 Jul 2025 Royal Albert Hall:
‘Grammy-winning artist Arooj Aftab is breaking new ground with her captivating, eclectic melting-pot of influences from jazz, folk, pop, blues and South Asian classical. For her Proms debut tonight, Aftab collaborates with Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to explore her distinctive sound on a symphonic scale.
French-Lebanese trumpeter, composer and producer Ibrahim Maalouf opens the concert in collaboration with the BBC Singers and BBC SO. His unique sound blends a wide range of influences from Middle Eastern melodies to jazz, Latin jazz and African rhythms, performed with a custom-made quarter-tone trumpet designed by Maalouf’s father’

·        ‘Soul Revolution’ – 19:30 Sun 3 Aug 2025 Royal Albert Hall;
‘With guest vocalists, a gospel choir and renowned Radio 2 presenter Trevor Nelson, the BBC Concert Orchestra and Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser trace a path from spirituals through gospel to soul, revealing the role of these genres in supporting the Civil Rights movement. Inspirational tracks made famous by Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin rub shoulders with hidden gems in a celebration of music that gave a voice to disenfranchised people, fostered a sense of community – and jumped with an infectious groove.’

·        ‘Great British Classics’ – 19:00 Tue 5 Aug 2025 Royal Albert Hall:

‘A celebration of Britain’s land- and sea-scapes. Hear the soaring flight of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending as well as the many moods of the North Sea as it meets Suffolk shingle in Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes’. …’

·        ‘Rachmaninov’s ‘Paganini’ Variations’ – 18:00 Fri 8 Aug 2025 Royal Albert Hall:
‘Desire, brutality and the supernatural are shaken together in the orchestral kaleidoscope of Bartók’s ballet The Miraculous Mandarin. Josep Pons conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the last of Bartók’s three great music-theatre scores, an electrifying fusion of folk music and modernism. Angular brilliance gives way to exotic, Impressionistic colours in Dukas’s exotic ‘danced poem’ La Péri. ‘Remarkable’ Italian pianist Beatrice Rana is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s thrilling Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.’

·        ‘St. Vincent’ – 20:00 Wed 3 Sep 2025 Royal Albert Hall:
‘She’s the queen of ‘raw emotion, electrifying rock and unrestrained self-expression’. Now, fresh from three 2025 Grammy wins – including Best Rock Song and Best Alternative Music Album – St. Vincent makes her BBC Proms debut in a unique UK performance. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating artists in modern music, the chart-topping American ‘art-rock siren’ collaborates with Jules Buckley and his orchestra, performing brand-new symphonic arrangements of tracks from her eclectic back catalogue.’

·        ‘Under the Italian Sun’ – 19:00 Sun 24 Aug 2025 Bristol Beacon – Beacon Hall:

‘Elgar’s In the South captures the exhilarating feeling of an afternoon by the Ligurian coast. Sunset comes and goes for two young lovers in Respighi’s Il tramonto, whose quiet tragedy echoes the tensions in the overture from Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers. There’s exhilarating energy from Rossini’s William Tell overture, and a chance to glance ahead to the joys of Tosca and La bohème in Puccini’s tune-filled Capriccio sinfonico.’

·        ‘Golda Schultz Sings Gershwin and Bernstein’ – 19:30 Sat 6 Sep 2025 Royal Albert Hall:

‘South African soprano Golda Schultz, the ‘glorious’ star of 2020’s Last Night, returns to the Proms with songs by Bernstein, Gershwin, Weill and others. Bask in the sultry heat of the Deep South in ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess; feel the intensity of first love in ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story. A programme of contrasting moods and colours also includes Schreker’s sensuous Chamber Symphony – glittering and mercurial – and the bold, folk-infused dances of Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.’

Jules Buckey is conducting twice this season!

To enjoy some of his earlier collaborations see:

Sheléa Frazier – I Say A Little Prayer (The Royal Albert Hall 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNiBAbnlZfM

Aretha Franklin Prom will explore ‘the core of who she was’: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-62565695.amp

Jamie Cullum and the Heritage Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley (BBC Proms 2010 – Full Concert):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmPt4F82nx4

It is going to be a great season!

The Areetha Franklin BBC Tribute Prom in 2022 was Sheléa’s debut in London.

See also: Sheléa • Live at Capitol Studios • The Aretha Franklin Tribute…:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=Shel%c3%a9a+sings+tribute+to+areetha+youtube&mid=1ADC13B11CED71E746601ADC13B11CED71E74660&mcid=B09021DC169249F2B4B429980E56100F&FORM=VIRE