Managed to listen to more of the Proms this year than ever before (freelancing certainly helps) and encourage any music lovers to do the same.
Tonight’s performance (7:30 London time) is the traditional last night fest (prom #76!), with a great line up: Nicola Benedetti, violinist, tenor Joseph Calleja singing (all) of Nessun Dorma, among other things, and the BBC Symphony. There is new stuff, old stuff, Land of Hope of Glory, and of course, “Jerusalem,” which, trust me, you’ll know, even if you don’t know.
Nice way to ring out the summer and spend a Friday afternoon. If you can’t listen live (maybe you aren’t a freelancer?) it will be up for another week, along with 10 other concerts or so. If you are in a place with better deals with the BBC for video (yes, I’m talking about you and your gang in New Dehli, Arnab) you even get to see it. For the rest of us, BBC has put up excerpts, including an invigorating, but abbreviated, bit of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man (with funny comments attributing the original to Emerson Lake and Palmer). Also good: John Adams, Anna Meredith’s “Hands Free,” and a searing bit of “Belshazzar’s Feast.” You can just let it run…nice tasting menu of the best classical music festival in the world.
A Few Reasonable Words 