BBC launches 2025 Proms season

The BBC has today revealed details of its 2025 Proms season. The upcoming season will run from 18 July to 13 September with performances from 21 visiting ensembles and more than 40 UK ensembles. BBC orchestras and choirs will give almost 50 concerts, with the BBC Singers performing at 11 Proms, including the First and Last Nights.

The 2025 Proms season kicks off in July with the First Night of the Proms, conducted by Sakari Oramo. The evening will feature performances from tenor Caspar Singh, baritone Gerald Finley and violinist Lisa Batiashvili alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Singers and members of London Youth Choirs. The programme will open with the Birthday Fanfare for Sir Henry Wood, composed by Sir Arthur Bliss, who died 50 years ago this year and will include the world premiere of a new commission by Master of the King’s Music Errollyn Wallen.

BBC Radio 3 and Proms Controller Sam Jackson said: ‘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 concert-goers old and new to the magic of this unique and very special festival.’ 

Beyond the Royal Albert Hall, 14 Proms are set to be held at venues across the UK. The BBC Proms makes its debut in both Bradford, as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, and Sunderland, as well as returning to Bristol and Gateshead for two three-day weekend residencies. The upcoming season will present 19 world, European or UK premieres, including 10 works commissioned by the BBC. Elsewhere, Sir Simon Rattle gives his first performance at the helm of Chineke!, in celebration of the extraordinary orchestra’s tenth birthday and Anna Lapwood co-curates the first overnight Prom since 1983.

Other first appearances include the Proms debut of Studio Ghibli composer and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra composer-in-association Joe Hisaishi and further debuts including Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Chorus. Bashkir mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina – the youngest artist to have performed at both the Metropolitan Opera and London’s Royal Opera House – and Nicholas McCarthy, the world’s only professional one-handed pianist also give their Proms debuts.

This year’s Proms season celebrates anniversaries of composer including include Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez and Arvo Pärt. The festival will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Shostakovich with eight of his works performed during the season, while the centenary of Radio 4’s popular Shipping Forecast will be marked by the Ulster Orchestra and poet laureate Simon Armitage with a Prom in Belfast.

The Proms collaborates with other ‘BBC brands’ across the season, including a Prom exploring themes of treachery and betrayal in classical music inspired by BBC reality TV show The Traitors and hosted by the show’s presenter Claudia Winkleman. Other non-classical collaborations will see multi-Grammy winning singer-songwriter St. Vincent and jazz singer Samara Joy perform this summer, while Anoushka Shankar gives the world premiere performance of her new album and Trevor Nelson presents the Soul Revolution Prom. 

For opera fans, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra will collaborate with English National Opera under John Storgårds for Shostakovich’s The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, while Glyndebourne brings a new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer perform Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano for a concert performance of Puccini’s Suor Angelica.

The Last Night of the Proms will be conducted by Elim Chan, who returns for her fourth Prom after conducting last year’s First Night to lead the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the BBC Singers, plus trumpeter Alison Balsom and soprano Louise Alder in a programme including world premieres from Camille Pépin and Rachel Portman.

Twenty-five Proms will be broadcast on BBC TV and iPlayer, including a televised Great British Classics Prom celebrating composers from Benjamin Britten, to Samuel and Avril Coleridge-Taylor, Grace Williams, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger and Malcolm Arnold. Promming day standing tickets remain at £8, and half-price tickets are available for under-18s.