Nurturing talent

BBC Proms Youth Ensemble
13 July

The First Night Of The Proms sees the BBC Proms Youth Ensemble and National Youth Choir of Great Britain assemble to premiere Anna Meredith’s Five Telegrams.

The Proms Youth Ensemble offers talented young instrumentalists opportunities to participate in innovative performances alongside professional musicians.

Ravel

• Daphnis and Chloe (14 July)
• Tzigane (15 July)
• Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (4 August)
• Boléro (15 August)
• Mother Goose; Shéhérazade; L’enfant et les sortilèges (18 August)
• La valse (31 August)
• Introduction and Allegro (3 September)

BBC Young Musician 40th Anniversary
15 July

The prestigious BBC Young Musician competition this year marks 40 years of commitment to youth music. The Proms celebrates this anniversary with a concert dedicated to the competition, inviting 21 alumni to perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Artists include Sheku Kanneh-Mason (pictured above), Nicola Benedetti and Freddy Kempf.

BBC Proms Youth Choir
21 July

Alongside young singers from Birmingham and Aberdeen who comprise the BBC Proms Youth Choir, the BBC Proms Youth Choir Academy, a week-long residency at The Sage Gateshead, will see young people from across the North East receive tutelage from the BBC Singers, Grace Rossiter and Simon Halsey, as they prepare for their Proms performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a new work by Ēriks Ešenvalds.

Ten Pieces Proms
29 July

The Ten Pieces Children’s Choir will this year see over 400 children from across the London area invited to perform in the two Ten Pieces Proms.

These Proms also feature a partnership with London Music Masters, a grass-roots music-education project, and collaborations with English Pen, an arts charity that works with young people from asylum-seeker and refugee backgrounds.

There will also be a nationwide call out for children to submit their own interpretations of No Place Like - one of this year’s Ten Pieces. Their creative responses will be featured throughout the two Proms.

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
4 August

George Benjamin makes the second of two conducting appearances at the Proms this year.

Under his baton, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain will perform his own Dance Figures of 2004, Ligeti’s Lontano, Ravel’s Piano Concerto For The Left Hand and Debussy’s La mer.

West Side Story Chorus
11 August

A top-flight cast for West Side Story will be joined by an ensemble of students from leading London theatre schools, ArtsEd and Mountview.

National Youth Jazz Orchestra
16 August

In a Late Night Prom, led by Mark Armstrong and Guy Barker, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra perform the original jazz-band version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor (pictured above).

BBC Proms Inspire
22 August

Celebrating its 20th birthday, the BBC Proms Inspire scheme returns to provide a forum to discover and nurture the UK’s aspiring young composers aged 12 to 18.

An Inspire Day on 22 August will give participants the chance to attend workshops with leading composers, while winners of this year’s competition and a number of last year’s winners will have their pieces performed by Aurora Orchestra and Christopher Stark at a special Inspire Concert at the BBC’s Radio Theatre, broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

BBC Proms Poetry Competition
3 September

The BBC Proms partners with the Poetry Society once more for the Proms Poetry Competition: a linked free event will see winners from each category (12 to 18-year-olds, and 19+) invited to read their poems on stage at Imperial College Union.

Participatory events

• The Proms Scratch Orchestra (27 August) offers an opportunity for adults (16+) of mixed ability to sit side by side with the BBC Concert Orchestra in a workshop on Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop.
• Two Proms Family Orchestra And Chorus events during the season see partnerships with Haringey Music Hub and a virtual school responsible for looked-after children, focused around the Brandenburg Concertos project (5 August) and the Proms At… Alexandra Palace concert (1 September). These events offer introductions to classical music and are aimed at children aged 7 and over.
• Proms Learning Come And Sing events aim to develop audiences who enjoy singing and want to explore choral repertoire by incorporating it into wider projects as an accessible entry point to classical music and group performance.

Key initiatives

• Tickets are half-price for anyone aged 18 or under (except for the Last Night Of The Proms).
• An increased number of matinee and weekend performances means it’s easier to fit in a Prom around your family timetable.

Related Downloads

• BBC Proms 2018 Media Pack (PDF)