The BBC Proms Reveals Lineup For 2025 Edition

The BBC Proms has announced the lineup for its 2025 edition. The BBC Proms will present an eight-week celebration of  music featuring over 3,000 artists, the first overnight Prom  in almost half a century and more than 80 solo debuts. The event runs Friday 18 July to Saturday 13 September 2025.

There will be 21 visiting ensembles, with leading orchestras including the Vienna  Philharmonic Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra  with Andris Nelsons and violinist Hilary Hahn, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Klaus Mäkelä and violinist Janine Jansen, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with  Robin Ticciati and soprano Golda Schultz, the Orchestre National de France with  Cristian Măcelaru, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischer, mezzo soprano Dorottya Láng and bass Krisztián Cser. 

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo, performs in the  First Night of the Proms alongside the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers, tenor Caspar Singh and baritone Gerald Finley. In suitably celebratory fashion, the First  Night opens with the Birthday Fanfare for Sir Henry Wood, composed by Sir Arthur Bliss,  who died fifty years ago this year. Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture follows, and the  first half concludes with the Violin Concerto by Sibelius, performed by the revered Lisa  Batiashvili. The world premiere of The Elements by Master of the King’s Music Errollyn  Wallen, commissioned by the BBC, opens the second half, and the concert closes with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas, composed a hundred years ago. 

The Last Night of the Proms features a stellar lineup of artists, with Elim Chan conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and the BBC Singers, and  trumpeter Alison Balsom and soprano Louise Alder leading the festivities. Classical  music’s biggest party will include two new commissions by Camille Pépin and Rachel  Portman: the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Original Score.  

The BBC continues to champion new music: 19 world, European or UK premieres will be  performed, including 10 works commissioned by the BBC. British composers receiving  premieres this season, in addition to Errollyn Wallen and Rachel Portman, include Tom  Coult with his Monologues for the Curious performed by tenor Allan Clayton, Mark  Simpson’s ZEBRA (or 2-3-74; The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick) performed by guitarist Sean Shibe, and a new piece from Sir John Rutter, written for the BBC Singers.  International composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Anthony Davis and Sofia Gubaidulina,  who passed away in March this year, also receive premieres this season.

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The Proms marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Shostakovich with eight of his  works, including Aurora Orchestra playing Symphony No. 5 entirely from memory.  Ensemble intercontemporain pays tribute to 20th-century giants Pierre Boulez and  Luciano Berio, both of whom were born a hundred years ago, and there is a special Late  Night Arvo Pärt at 90 Prom.  

The first overnight Prom since 1983 is guest curated by organist Anna Lapwood, and  runs from 11pm to 7am. It features a captivating line-up of artists: pianist and YouTube  sensation Hayato Sumino, cellist Anastasia Kobekina, the Chapel Choir of Pembroke  College, Cambridge and the boundary-crossing Norwegian ensemble Barokksolistene with their violinist director Bjarte Eike, with more guests to be revealed soon. 

There will be 14 Proms at venues across the UK, with three-day Proms weekends at the  Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead and at Bristol Beacon,  including a welcome return from Paraorchestra in collaboration with folk duo The Breath. There are first-time visits to Bradford, marking the city’s status as UK Capital of  Culture, with Grammy Award-winner and celebrated ‘Queen of African Music’ Angélique  Kidjo, and to Sunderland for a special edition of the nightly Radio 3 jazz  programme ’Round Midnight with Soweto Kinch. The Prom in Belfast with the Ulster  Orchestra –100 Years of the Shipping Forecast – includes a new commission and  performance from Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and his band LYR, presented in  collaboration with Radio 4.  

Sam Jackson, Controller, Radio 3 and BBC Proms, says: “With 86 concerts across eight  weeks, I am delighted to be announcing the 2025 BBC Proms season. Our summer of live  music will see us host the greatest international orchestras and the best of British talent,  in repertoire that ranges from the much-loved to the entirely new. World-famous  soloists such as Hilary Hahn and Sir András Schiff sit alongside some of today’s brightest  young classical stars: from Yunchan Lim, to Aigul Akhmetshina, to Louise Alder, who performs at the Last Night of the Proms. As ever, every note will be broadcast on BBC  Radio 3 and BBC Sounds, with 25 programmes featuring across BBC TV and iPlayer. And  with tickets for every Prom available from just £8, we look forward to welcoming  concertgoers old and new to the magic of this unique and very special festival.” 

The BBC Proms plays a central role in supporting British music, and this year there will  be a televised Great British Classics Prom celebrating composers from Benjamin Britten, to Samuel and Avril Coleridge Taylor, to Grace Williams. Sir Simon Rattle  conducts the Chineke! Orchestra for the first time, in their tenth anniversary year; Rattle  also conducts the wind, brass and percussion of the London Symphony Orchestra for a  series of folk-song arrangements by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger and  Malcolm Arnold.  

Opera highlights include the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra collaborating with the  English National Opera under John Storgårds for Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District,  by Shostakovich – only performed in its entirety once before at the Proms. In addition,  Glyndebourne bring their new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, the 

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Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer perform Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s  Castle, and the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus are conducted by Sir Antonio  Pappano for a concert performance of Puccini’s Suor Angelica. 

Choral music includes Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas, which closes the First  Night of the Proms; Kahchun Wong making his first Proms appearance as the Hallé’s  newly appointed Principal Conductor with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2; and Sir Mark Elder conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Delius’s A Mass of Life. The award-winning  Baroque dynamos Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra & Chorus make their  Proms debut with Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, and Le Concert Spirituel performs Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts.  

With themes of treachery, betrayal and deceit having run through classical music and  opera for centuries, the Proms unveils a collaboration with The Traitors, as Claudia  Winkleman hosts two very special concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. The Traitors Prom will feature a range of famous classical works, alongside new arrangements of some of  the music from this hugely popular BBC programme. 

Legendary Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi makes his Proms debut, conducting the  Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in his symphony The End of the World. The programme  also includes Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, a work not heard at the Proms for nearly  25 years. Fifty years after the death of one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed composers,  the BBC Concert Orchestra celebrates the great Bernard Herrmann with a special Prom  devoted to his film scores, many of which saw Herrmann collaborate with the director  Alfred Hitchcock – including Psycho and Vertigo. 

The BBC Proms continues its tradition of orchestral collaborations with non-classical  artists and tributes to different musical genres. Multi Grammy Award-winners St.  Vincent and Samara Joy make their Proms debuts: St. Vincent performs brand new  symphonic arrangements of tracks from her back catalogue with Jules Buckley and his  orchestra, and Samara Joy, who won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2023, brings her  octet to the Proms to showcase iconic standards from the Great American Song Book with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Trevor Nelson presents the Soul Revolution Prom, which traces a path from spirituals through gospel to soul and reveals the role of these  genres in supporting the Civil Rights movement. Sitar player and composer Anoushka  Shankar performs the world premiere of her new album Chapter III, alongside her  previous albums Chapters I and II, with the London Contemporary Orchestra and Robert  Ames. 

More than 80 artists make their Proms solo debuts, showcasing an exciting range of  musical talent. Among them are Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, who burst onto the world  stage in 2021 when he won the International Chopin Piano Competition, and Bashkir  mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, who received copious acclaim when, aged 21, she  starred in the title role of Carmen at the Royal Opera House in 2018. Akhmetshina sang  Carmen last year at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the youngest artist to have  performed the role in both houses. The season is also packed with home-grown talent:  Nicholas McCarthy, the world’s only professional one-handed pianist, makes his Proms 

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debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mark Wigglesworth in Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand – in the composer’s 150th anniversary year.  It will be the first time this concerto has been played at the Proms by a one-handed  pianist since the soloist it was composed for, Paul Wittgenstein, performed it in 1932.  

BBC Radio 3 will once again enable the festival to reach millions of people by  broadcasting every Prom. Other BBC Radio networks will broadcast highlights. Twenty five Proms will be broadcast on BBC TV and iPlayer with nine Proms across BBC One  and BBC Two, demonstrating the BBC’s commitment to reaching broad audiences for  classical music. For the first time, two Proms in the North-East of England will be  televised. Performed at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Robert Ames conducts the concert on Friday, soon to be announced, and Dinis Sousa conducts  Saturday’s concert of works by Bach and Mendelssohn, both with the Royal Northern  Sinfonia. 

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