The BBC Proms welcome Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Joshua Bell and The Kanneh-Mason Family this week for five stunning concerts.
Tuesday, 24 August – Jeneba Kanneh-Mason makes her BBC Proms debut as a soloist performing Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with Chineke! Orchestra under conductor Kalena Bovell
The BBC Proms writes, “The Chineke! Orchestra returns for its fourth visit to the Proms, celebrating diversity in composers as well as performers. Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s overture to his popular cantata based on the tale of a Native American leader quotes the spiritual ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen’. There are further meetings of African and European musical styles in Nigerian composer Fela Sowande’s African Suite and the piano concerto by Florence Price, the first female African-American composer to win renown in America. By contrast, Coleridge-Taylor’s Symphony, written as a 20-year old student of Stanford at London’s Royal College of Music, reveals the influence of his hero, Dvořák.”
Listen on BBC Radio 3 – 19:30, Tuesday, 24 August
Watch on BBC 4 – 20:00, Thursday, 26 August
Wednesday, 25 August – Music Director Joshua Bell returns to the BBC Proms with two concerts on 25 August (15:30 and 20:00) with Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Bell will lead ASMF for their “Eight Seasons” programme featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
The BBC Proms writes, “From an icy Italian winter to the heady, sensual warmth of a South American summer: violinist Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on a musical journey through the sights and sounds of two continents and four very different seasons. Inspired by Vivaldi’s best-known work, Piazzolla – Argentina’s 20th-century tango king, whose 100th anniversary we celebrate this year – created his own response, complete with musical quotations. While Vivaldi’s virtuosic concertos celebrate contrast – the freshness of spring, with its sudden thunderstorms, versus the languid heat of summer – Piazzolla’s musical landscape remains more constant, always swaying to the pervasive rhythm of the tango.”
Listen on BBC Radio 3 – 20:00, Wednesday, 25 August
Watch on BBC 4 – 19:00, Friday, 27 August
Sunday, 29 August – The Kanneh-Masons perform Camille Saint‐Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals (with new narration by Michael Morpurgo), preceded by the world premiere of Daniel Kidane’s New Work, in two Family Proms (14:30 and 19:00).
The BBC Proms writes, “Author Michael Morpurgo joins the seven talented Kanneh-Mason siblings and starry musical friends for this special Family Prom. Saint-Saëns’s much-loved suite The Carnival of the Animals – a musical menagerie packed with braying donkeys, energetic kangaroos, a serene swan and an aquarium of glinting fish – gets a fresh update in witty new poems by Morpurgo. British Sign Language-interpreted performance”
Listen on BBC Radio 3 – 19:00, Sunday, 29 August
Watch on BBC 4 – 20:00, Sunday, 29 August
Photos: Jeneba Kanneh-Mason – Jake Turney ; Joshua Bell – Lisa_Marie_Mazzuco; The Kanneh-Mason Family – Jake Turney
