The Last Night of the Proms 2020

The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska makes her Last Night debut in the climax of a Proms season like no other. Tonight there’s no flag-waving at the Royal Albert Hall, but instead a musical feast in countless living rooms – and on countless mobile devices – across the country and around the world.

South African soprano Golda Schultz sings a ravishing aria from Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro and the rapt, intimate song ‘Morgen!’ written by Richard Strauss as a wedding-day gift to his wife. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is also joined violinist Nicola Benedetti for Vaughan Williams’s soaring The Lark Ascending.

In these unsettled times, a new commission by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi points to music’s bright future. There's Belize-born composer Errollyn Wallen's Jerusalem – our clouded hills. her creatively reimagined arrangement, dedicated it to the Windrush generation, based on Elgar’s take on Parry’s setting of Blake’s words. There are Last Night favourites including Parry's original Jerusalem, for which the BBC Singers join the BBC SO, and at the end, a specially recorded Lockdown recording of Auld Lang Syne by singers from the BBC Symphony Chorus and the National Chorus of Wales plus musicians from the BBC's orchestras.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall
Presented by Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Overture and '‘Deh vieni, non tardar’
Richard Strauss: Morgen!
Andrea Tarrodi: Solus (BBC commission: world premiere)
Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music – Night Waltz and 'The glamorous life'
Jean Sibelius: Impromptu for Strings
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Hubert Parry arr. Errollyn Wallen: Jerusalem - our clouded hills (BBC commission: world premiere)
arr. Henry Wood: Fantasia on British Sea Songs concluding with Arne: Rule, Britannia!
Edward Elgar (arr. Anne Dudley): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (‘Land of Hope and Glory’)
Rogers and Hammerstein: You'll Never Walk Alone
Hubert Parry: Jerusalem
arr. Benjamin Britten: National Anthem

Golda Schultz (soprano)
Nicola Benedetti (violin)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska (conductor)

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Traditional arr Michael Higgins: Auld Lang Syne
BBC Symphony Chorus
National Chorus of Wales
Members of the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra.