The Proms, or the BBC Proms, more formally known as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, 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 Proms were founded in 1895, and are now organised and broadcast by the BBC. 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".
Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer and conductor noted for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He won three Academy Awards for his work on the first trilogy, with one being for the original song "Into the West", an award he shared with Eurythmics lead vocalist Annie Lennox and writer/producer Fran Walsh, who wrote the lyrics. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg, having scored all but one of his films since 1979.
Roy Wood is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was particularly successful in the 1960s and 1970s as member and co-founder of The Move, Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. As a songwriter, he contributed a number of hits to the repertoire of these bands. Altogether he had more than 20 singles in the UK Singles Chart under various guises, including three UK No. 1 hits.
Joanna Clare MacGregor is a British concert pianist, conductor, composer, and festival curator. She is Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and a professor of the University of London. She is currently artistic director of the International Summer School & Festival at Dartington Hall.
David Arnold is an English film composer best known for scoring five James Bond films, as well as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998) and the television series Little Britain and Sherlock. For Independence Day he received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television and for Sherlock he, and co-composer Michael Price, won a Creative Arts Emmy for the score of "His Last Vow", the final episode in the third series. Arnold scored the BBC / Amazon Prime series Good Omens (2019) adapted by Neil Gaiman from his book Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett. Arnold is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
George Fenton is an English composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television. He composed the themes for the BBC series Bergerac (1981), The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006).
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.
Howard Lindsay Goodall is an English composer of musicals, choral music and music for television. He also presents music-based programmes for television and radio, for which he has won many awards. In May 2008, he was named as a presenter and Composer-in-Residence with the UK radio channel Classic FM. In May 2009, he was named "Composer of the Year" at the Classic BRIT Awards.
Haydn Wood was a 20th-century English composer and concert violinist.
Brian Easdale was an English composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music.
Debbie Wiseman, OBE is a British composer for film and television, known also as a conductor and a radio and television presenter.
Nitin Sawhney is a British musician, producer and composer, as well as former comic actor. A recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017, his work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of jazz and electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics, and spirituality. Sawhney is also active in the promotion of arts and cultural matters, and is a patron of numerous film festivals, venues, and educational institutions.
Trevor Duncan was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. Born in London, and largely self-taught, he originally composed as a sideline while working for the BBC. In the UK, he is well known for pieces such as The Girl From Corsica, High Heels and the March from A Little Suite, all of which gained fame as television and radio themes.
Howard Gordon Shelley is a British pianist and conductor. He was educated at Highgate School and the Royal College of Music. He is married to fellow pianist Hilary Macnamara, with whom he has performed and recorded in a two-piano partnership, and they have two sons.
James Whitbourn is a British composer and conductor.
Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer/arranger and pianist. He is currently Music Director for English National Ballet.
John Altman is an English film composer, music arranger, orchestrator and conductor.
Paul Englishby is a film and theatre composer, orchestrator, conductor and pianist. He is best known for his Emmy Award winning jazz score for David Hare's Page Eight, his orchestral score for the Oscar nominated An Education, his BAFTA nominated score for the BBC's Luther and his many theatre scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom Paul is an associated artist.
Michael D. Xavier is an English actor and singer.
Irmelin is an opera in three acts with music by Frederick Delius. Composed between 1890 and 1892, it was the first opera which he finished but had to wait until 1953 for its stage premiere. The libretto was by the composer, and weaves together two mythical stories. Philip Heseltine described the opera as a "fairy-tale of quite ordinary kind" and "its form dramatically rather below the level of the conventional operatic text. Though the music was much praised by Grieg and Messager... its performance was never seriously contemplated by the composer". Delius had however assimilated Wagnerian influence in his music, with use of key motifs and a sense of flow through the three acts.
