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BBC Proms - 18 July-13 Sept 2008 - The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival

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Prom 55: Philharmonia Orchestra

  • Date Wednesday 27 August 2008
  • Time 7.00pm - c9.05pm
  • Venue Royal Albert Hall
  • Tickets £6-£35 price band A or Prom for £5
  • Broadcast Live on BBC Radio 3. Available as audio on demand for the following week.

Akiko Suwanai

A programme with leanings towards the natural world. Debussy's faun slumbers languidly in the heat of a Mediterranean afternoon and Vaughan Williams's lark climbs ever higher into the sky above England.

VW's teacher Maurice Ravel sets his ballet Daphnis et Chloé in an Ancient Greece ravishingly lit by a sun that dawns magnificently at the opening of the Second Suite. And an Orient of sensuality and danger is portrayed in the exotic song-cycle Shéhérazade.

Peter Eötvös's violin concerto, Seven, was written to commemorate the seven astronauts who lost their lives in the space shuttle Columbia.

  • Debussy Prélude à L'après-midi d'un faune (10 mins)
  • Peter Eötvös Seven (violin concerto) (UK premiere) (20 mins)
  • Interval
  • Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending (14 mins)
  • Ravel Shéhérazade (18 mins)
  • Ravel Daphnis and Chloe - Suite No.2 (17 mins)

Akiko Suwanai violin
Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano

Philharmonia Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki conductor

We regret to announce that Peter Eötvös is unwell and is therefore unable to conduct this concert. The BBC is extremely grateful to Susanna Mälkki for agreeing to take his place at very short notice.

Proms Reviews: Prom 55

Watch a video:
Akiko Suwanai talks about performing The Lark Ascending with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
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9.15pm - 9.45pm: Proms Literary Festival Ian McMillan explores literature inspired by birds, with poet Katrina Porteous and nature writer Mark Cocker.
Broadcast on Radio 3: Thursday 28 August, 8.25pm

Prom 56: London Sinfonietta

  • Date Wednesday 27 August 2008
  • Time 10.00pm - c11.20pm
  • Venue Royal Albert Hall
  • Tickets £8-£17.50 price band E or Prom for £5
  • Broadcast Live on BBC Radio 3. Available as audio on demand for the following week.
  • Radio 3 Christmas repeats: Broadcast on 30 December at 9.15pm

Einojuhani Rautavaara (credit: Maarit Kytöharju Fimic)

The natural world of this evening's earlier Prom spills over into this late-night London Sinfonietta concert. Einojuhani Rautavaara's most popular work, a concerto for taped birds and orchestra, marks the composer's 80th anniversary.

And Sir John Tavener's early cantata The Whale is heard again under the baton of David Atherton, who gave its premiere at the London Sinfonietta's inaugural concert 40 years ago. The work was famously recorded on the Beatles' own Apple label after Ringo Starr heard it.

Forty years on, Tavener offers the UK premiere of Cantus mysticus, for soprano, clarinet and strings, with sets texts by Goethe, Dante and others, concerned with the creative Feminine element in the Divine.

  • Einojuhani Rautavaara Cantus arcticus (18 mins)
  • Sir John Tavener Cantus mysticus (UK premiere) (7 mins)
  • Sir John Tavener The Whale (35 mins)

There will be no interval

Patricia Rozario soprano
Susan Bickley mezzo-soprano
David Wilson-Johnson baritone
Mark van de Wiel clarinet

Brian Perkins narrator
Kathy Clugston speaker
Sarah Montague speaker
Alison Rooper speaker
Vaughan Savidge speaker
Zeb Soanes speaker
Edward Stourton speaker

London Sinfonietta Chorus
London Sinfonietta
David Atherton conductor

Proms Reviews: Prom 56

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