Adès conducts the BBC SO

Live at the BBC Proms the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Adès performs Sibelius, Adès & Gabriella Smith's organ concerto Breathing Forests with soloist James McVinnie.

Presented by Tom Service at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Jean Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela
Gabriella Smith: Breathing Forests (UK premiere)

c. 8.10pm
Interval: Eleanor Barraclough is the author of Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age and has spent the past five years exploring the history of trees, forests and woodlands in northern cultures. She joins Tom Service to talk about trees and nature writing

c. 8.30pm
Thomas Adès: Five Spells from The Tempest
Jean Sibelius: The Tempest – Suite No. 1

James McVinnie (organ)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Adès (conductor)

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 Finnish 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.