Looking back at the BBC Proms
With the 2023 BBC Proms now over, we look back at the season and the many exciting performances by our artists, with links to reviews and to catch up on anything you missed.
Paul Lewis opened the BBC Proms season on 14 July, with Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Dalia Stasevska.
‘Paul Lewis gave a beautifully poetic account of the first two movements of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, before letting his inner showman off the leash in the finale’
The Guardian
Watch on BBC iPlayer
Listen on BBC Sounds
Elena Urioste performed Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto with BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Tadaaki Otaka on 19 July. She also performed with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective on 27 August.
‘Elena Urioste made a thoroughly engaging case for the Coleridge-Taylor concerto, her airy, silvery tone and fine filigree detail well matched to its melodic invention and elegant reveries’
The Arts Desk
Watch on BBC iPlayer
Listen on BBC Sounds
Listen to Kaleidoscope on BBC Sounds
Ilan Volkov conducted BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Catherine Lamb’s Portions Transparent/Opaque and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony on 24 July.
‘In the 20 years that he has been associated with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, first as its principal conductor, and then, since 2009 as its principal guest, Ilan Volkov has arguably been more adventurous and introduced a wider range of contemporary music than any other conductor working regularly in the UK... Volkov is not a conductor to wear his heart on his sleeve, and though his performance was unfolded with great deliberation, it never became self-indulgent’
The Guardian
François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles celebrated the centenary year of Ligeti on 20 August, performing the Concert Romanesc and Violin Concerto, alongside Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.23 and Symphony no.41, ‘Jupiter’, with soloists Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov.
‘An energising, life-enhancing evening’
Evening Standard
Allan Clayton joined Academy of Ancient Music and Music Director Laurence Cummings to sing the title role in Handel’s Samson on 23 August.
‘The glow of Clayton’s voice and the contrasts he shaped here were arresting. But even these were outdone by the hushed introspection he brought to his final aria’
The Guardian
Aaron Azunda Akugbo joined Chineke! to perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto on 1 September.
‘Aaron Azunda Akugbo served up a flute of sparkling champagne, the effervescent brilliance of his playing radiating through the outer movements, with stylish ornamentation in his own cadenza and elsewhere too. His capacity for capturing a spirit of inwardness was on show not only in the central Andante, but also in the meditative beauty of his encore, an arrangement of Florence Price’s Adoration’
Bachtrack
James Bonas directed Aurora Orchestra in a dramatic exploration of The Rite of Spring on 2 September.
‘One of the most breathtaking Proms in history’
The Times
Steven Osborne performed Tippett's Piano Sonata no.2 and Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet with the Heath Quartet on 3 September.
‘[Tippett’s sonata] received the ultimate advocacy from Steven Osborne’
Edinburgh Music Review
Listen on BBC Sounds
