Proms 2025 Adès Conducts the BBC SO

Composer and conductor Thomas Adès has long been a fan of Sibelius: ‘He’s obsessed with nature – you’ve always got this sense that he is on the edge of some vast wilderness.’ Adès drew inspiration from the Finnish composer’s incidental music for The Tempest when writing his own opera on the Shakespeare play. He conducts suites from both these storm-laden, supernatural works, along with The Swan of Tuonela, in which Sibelius summoned up his skill as a bard of Swedish folk tales. James McVinnie is the soloist in Gabriella Smith’s organ concerto Breathing Forests, a cavernous ‘sonic forest’ and howl of protest against natural destruction.

Thomas Adès © Marco Borggreve