Classical Source welcomes Roger Wright – Controller, BBC Radio 3 and Director, BBC Proms – as the guest writer of the July and August editorial…


We're counting down to the start of the 2010 BBC Proms. It is always an exciting week – and it is incredibly heart-warming to feel the interest and warmth shown towards the festival. It seems that the BBC Proms simply grows in importance as each year passes. However I can assure you that no-one in the Proms team takes this for granted and it is a huge team effort to keep the heritage alive and also make it fit for purpose in the 21st-century.

This year we have again decided not to have any non-musical themes – as in recent Proms festivals there are featured performers and composers – and not just those celebrating particular anniversaries. Paul Lewis will be the first pianist in Proms history to play all five Beethoven concertos and I am proud of our focus on Parry and Scriabin. Parry deserves to be known by a broader audience for more than just Jerusalem and the big orchestral scores of Scriabin will sound magnificent in the Royal Albert Hall.

The planning cycles of the Proms are such that most of the following year's Proms are planned before this year's begins. So it is hard to build on successes from one year to the next – but I very much hope that we will continue to develop the Proms audience base. Proms last year such as the Ukulele Orchestra, the MGM Prom and late-nights devoted to Philip Glass and Michael Nyman certainly attracted new audiences and I suspect the Jamie Cullum and Penguin Cafe late-night Proms will do the same this year.

The Rodgers & Hammerstein Prom (with the remarkable John Wilson and his orchestra) and the Sondheim 80th-birthday celebration have already proved to be very hot tickets.

Luckily they will both be televised, so those not fortunate enough to be able to attend in person will be able to see them both. It is easy to take this TV coverage for granted but if you go back just a decade or so you will find less than a dozen Proms on TV, now there are almost 30 and on all five BBC TV channels – and in prime-time every Saturday night on BBC2 through the festival. It will be interesting to hear and read the feedback about the new-look TV coverage this year. And, of course, you can hear every programme live on Radio 3.

We begin with the largest-ever opening weekend, so expect long queues for Mahler 8, Die Meistersinger (with Bryn Terfel) and Simon Boccanegra (with Plácido Domingo) and then we will only have reached the first Monday with two months still to go! You’ll be able to spot the Proms team in the Royal Albert Hall or Cadogan Hall – they’ll be the ones reaching for the energy drinks and vitamin pills!

With so much music available and so many artists from which to select (all practical considerations apart!), I know that we will never please our individual audience members with every concert – but with the range on offer and with such value-for-money tickets (thanks to the BBC subsidy) I feel confident that there is something for everyone and that Henry Wood’s vision of quality classical music for the largest possible audience is alive and well.

Exciting days ahead!




Classical Source plans, as it has done for the past seven seasons, to review every concert of this year’s BBC Proms, which begins on Friday 16 July. Details of programmes and much more on the following link.

• BBC Proms