BBC performing groups
The six BBC performing groups are the backbone of the Proms. With around 30 performances between them, including the First and Last Nights with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the breadth of music-making is vast.
New music is at the heart of their Proms, with major premieres throughout the season. The BBC Symphony Orchestra performs three BBC commissions: Endless Forms by Fung Lam (18 July); meld by Benedict Mason (28 July); and Night Songs by Helen Grime (25 August).
Other premieres by the BBC SO include Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Canon Fever, the first work to be performed in the 2012 season (13 July). The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra premieres Thea Musgrave’s Loch Ness – a Postcard from Scotland, a BBC commission (5 August); the BBC Philharmonic gives the premiere of James MacMillan’s BBC co-commisioned Credo (7 August); while the BBC Singers perform in the premiere of a major new piece for children, The Angry Planet by Bob Chilcott (5 August), as well as in the premiere of Eric Whitacre’s BBC commission Higher, Faster, Stronger, part of a Late Night Prom featuring the American composer’s music (29 August).
The BBC Concert Orchestra gives two Proms firsts this season: a complete performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard (19 August) and the Desert Island Discs Prom (3 September).
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Manze, offers a rare opportunity to hear Vaughan Williams’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5 and 6 all in one concert (16 August).
The BBC Symphony Orchestra gives 12 performances throughout the season, many of which include choral music. In four Proms, including the First and Last Nights, the orchestra is joined by the BBC Symphony Chorus, while other collaborators include the newly formed BBC Proms Youth Choir (1 August), the BBC Singers, Crouch End Festival Chorus and New London Chamber Choir (12 August), the London Philharmonic Choir (29 August) and the BBC Singers again for John Adams’s iconic opera Nixon in China (5 September).