The BBC Proms 2013 season was announced today. There's far too much to write about in one blog post but there are a few that have caught my eye. The big headlines are, of course, the Wagner Ring Cycle from Daniel Barenboim (pity the standing Prommers!) and Marin Alsop conducting the Last Night of the Proms. Of course, she's a conductor first and foremost - not a 'female conductor' – but I still think it's worth shouting an 'encore' for the first time that a woman has taken the helm of the Last Night.
So, where to begin? Well, featuring a newly-commissioned fanfare as the season opener seems to be becoming a new Proms tradition, with a BBC Music Magazine commission from Mark-Anthony Turnage starting last year's season, and a Proms commission from Judith Weir getting 2011's concert series underway. This year Julian Anderson does the honours. Mahler from the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott should be terrific, if their recordings are anything to go by; there's the inimitable Mitsuko Uchida in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto; Edward Gardner is conducting an intriguing looking programme intertwining Lutoslawski and Holst; and Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra bring Stockhausen's 'Welt-Parlament' from Mittwoch aus 'Licht' to the Proms following the world premiere of the whole unlikely opera last year in Birmingham.
Mark-Anthony Turnage's response to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is paired with the work itself; and the Late-night Prom from the Monteverdi Choir and John Eliot Gardiner features the uplifting Ascension and Easter Oratorios. And my inner child jumps for joy at the thought of The Big Proms Bear Hunt celebrating Michael Rosen's wonderful book.
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