The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. The 2024 Proms season ran from Friday 19 July to Saturday 14 September. The Proms were founded in 1895, and have been organised and broadcast by the BBC since 1927. Each season consists of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, chamber music concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the UK on the Last Night of the Proms, and associated educational and children's events. The season is a significant event in British culture and in classical music. Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival".
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Peter Michael Tong is an English disc jockey who works for BBC Radio 1. He is the host of programmes such as Essential Mix and Essential Selection on the radio service, which can be heard through Internet radio streams, for his record label FFRR Records and for his own performances at nightclubs and music festivals. Tong has also worked as a record producer and is regarded as the "global ambassador for electronic music."
Marin Alsop is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2020.
Timothy David Minchin AM is a British-born Australian comedian, actor, writer, musician, poet, composer, and songwriter.
Sir Nicholas Roger Kenyon, CBE, is a British music administrator, editor and writer on music.
Sinfonia of London is a symphony orchestra based in London, England, conducted by John Wilson.
Tansy Davies is an English composer of contemporary classical music. She won the BBC Young Composers' Competition in 1996 and has written works for ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2023 she was awarded the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collections at The Ivors Classical Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements in composition.
Gareth McLearnon is a Northern Irish flautist, composer and arranger based in Strasbourg, France.
The New London Children's Choir was a children's choir which rehearsed at Highgate Primary School in North London and, latterly, All Hallows, Gospel Oak, giving singing opportunities to members aged seven to eighteen. Members were from London and surrounding areas. It was founded in 1991 by Artistic Director Ronald Corp and held its last rehearsal in July 2022. As well as performing its own concerts, the choir sang with orchestras and ensembles in many concert halls and opera houses worldwide and features on several film and TV soundtracks and CDs.
Vula Malinga is an American-born British singer. Born in the United States to South African parents, she was raised in Hackney, London. Her religious parents supported her singing talents by allowing her to join the church choir, which resulted in her becoming one of the lead singers for the London Community Gospel Choir.
The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory. The Barbican Centre is a member of the Global Cultural Districts Network.
The London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO), founded in 2008 by Hugh Brunt and Robert Ames, is an ensemble of young musicians whose stated aim is "to explore and promote new music to an increasingly wide audience". LCO staged its inaugural season at LSO St. Luke's and has since performed at venues and festivals both in the UK and internationally, including the Roundhouse, Latitude Festival, The Old Vic Tunnels, Snape Maltings, Southbank Centre, Barbican, Spitalfield's Music, Royal Opera House, Yota Space, and Unsound Festival. LCO has since provided its work on films including Theeb, Moonlight, Macbeth, Slow West,The Master, The Two Popes and American Animals.
The London Oriana Choir is a choral group comprising around 120 singers, based in London, England. It was formed in 1973 by Leon Lovett, who acted as conductor and musical director. David Drummond became the choir's musical director in 1996, and Dominic Ellis-Peckham began his term as musical director in September 2013. The choir has developed a following through performances at London venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank, St Paul's Cathedral, St Martin-in-the-Fields and St James' Piccadilly. In 2016 the choir launched a five-year project 'Five 15' to promote the work of women composers with 15 new commissions from five composers, workshops and recordings. The five commissioned composers-in-residence were Cheryl Frances-Hoad (2016/17), Rebecca Dale (2017/18), Jessica Curry (2018/19), Anna Disley-Simpson (2019-2021), and Hannah Kendall (2021/22). Composer Cecilia McDowall accepted the role of Patron of the choir in 2021. The choir celebrates its 50th anniversary in the 2023/24 season and has commissioned a new piece from Cecilia McDowall, to be premiered at a gala concert at St John's Smith Square in March 2024.
Jules Buckley is an English conductor, composer, and arranger.
Joseph Phibbs is an English composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music. He has also composed for theatre, both in the UK and Japan. Since 1998 he has written regularly to commissions for Festivals, for private sponsors, and for the BBC, which has broadcast premieres of his orchestral and chamber works from the Proms and elsewhere. His works have been given premieres in Europe, the United States and the Far East, and he has received prestigious awards, including most recently a British Composer Award, and a Library of Congress Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award. Many of his works have been premiered by leading international musicians, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, and the Belcea Quartet.
Grace-Evangeline Mason is a British composer of contemporary classical music.
Linda Buckley is an Irish art music composer and musician. Her work has been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, Icebreaker and Iarla Ó Lionaird. She has received a Fulbright Scholarship and the Frankfurt Visual Music Award.
The BACK Tour was a concert tour by Australian musician Tim Minchin. The tour began on 5 March 2019 at the Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide before touring Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom before concluding on 22 January 2022 at the Enmore Theatre, Sydney.
Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra is an orchestral concert tour by Australian musician and comedian Tim Minchin, accompanied by the Heritage Orchestra and city symphony orchestras.
