91Èȱ¬

Introduction

Friday 16 July – Saturday 11 September

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The 2004 91Èȱ¬ Proms, launched today, features the traditional mixture of great music, great artists and great occasions – including this year the biggest celebration of Proms in the Park around the United Kingdom on the Last Night.

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It also introduces new music, new outreach events, new interactive elements and more Proms on television than ever before, creating a renewed commitment to the audience of the future.

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Since the very beginning the Proms has been about making the greatest music available to all, informing, educating and entertaining the widest possible audience, and championing new music, composers and artists.

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In 2004 the 91Èȱ¬ renews all these great traditions, emphasising the great heritage of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in their 110th year, while creating a new model of a music festival for the new media of the 21st century.

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More Proms on TV than ever before

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms concerts are available to more people in more ways than ever before in 2004.

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91Èȱ¬ FOUR, which has broadcast the first two weeks of the season since its launch, now adds the final week of concerts.

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91Èȱ¬ ONE and 91Èȱ¬ TWO broadcast 10 concerts between them.

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Thirty of the 74 main evening Proms are televised on 91Èȱ¬ ONE, TWO and FOUR, and all concerts are broadcast live on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 and streamed via the 91Èȱ¬ Proms website.

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Increasing interactivity

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To ensure that audiences have the richest possible experience, advances in the 91Èȱ¬'s interactive and digital services are used to the full.

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People can access informative notes about the music and musicians, wherever and however they are listening or watching, including for the first time on DAB radio and on Radio 3 via Freeview, as well as online.

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms website provides unprecedented access to the music and information about all aspects of the Proms.

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This year there will be a special audience vote online as well as by phone for overtures to be played in The Nation's Favourite Prom.

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms also launches a text club to keep audiences up-to-date with news and concert information during the season.

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Music for all

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Ticket prices remain stable, reasonable and accessible to all. There are no price increases this season.

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For every Prom up to 1,400 standing places are available on the day at £4.

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There are more than 150,000 places, including seats, available at £10 or under during the Proms season, a price level made possible by the 91Èȱ¬'s continuing promotion of the festival as part of its public service mission.

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The Proms look East

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The Proms' East/West theme brings the charismatic cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble to the Proms for the first time, as well as new music by Chinese-American composers Tan Dun, Zhou Long and Bright Sheng.

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Many of the finest works of Western music by composers such as Britten, Debussy, Mahler, Messiaen and Ravel are also heard.

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Bohemian rhapsodies

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Anniversaries for Dvoøák and Janáèek have stimulated an exploration of Czech music which goes beyond those composers to Biber (whose anniversary is also marked), Martinù and other Czech masters.

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There are great classics: Dvoøák's last four symphonies under Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vassily Sinaisky; Janáèek's Glagolitic Mass and Biber's Missa bruxellensis.

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Back to Bohemia also brings rare gems such as Dvoøák's little-known opera Dimitrij and music by neglected composers which might not otherwise be heard.

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The rebirth of English music

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England at the Crossroads: 1934 celebrates the work of the great patriarchs of English music - Elgar, Delius and Holst, who all died in 1934, as well as the births of two great Proms names of today, Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, both born that year.

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Popular classics such as Holst's The Planets are heard alongside rarer works such as Elgar's elegiac choral masterpiece The Music Makers and Delius' Whitman setting Sea Drift.

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Anthony Payne's acclaimed realisation of Elgar's Third Symphony receives a second Proms hearing while there are premieres of new works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

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A first Proms hearing for Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Antarctic Symphony and a concert on his actual birthday form part of the celebrations for the new Master of The Queen's Music.

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Creating the new

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms has always championed new music.

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This season there are major commissions for the 91Èȱ¬ orchestras from John Casken, Zhou Long and Joby Talbot, a commission from Sir Harrison Birtwistle (as well as the first hearing here of a new co-commission) and new choral works from Judith Bingham and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

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The Proms also continues to place music by composers of today at the heart of its season with more than 15 other premieres of works by popular composers of our time as diverse as John Adams and Sir John Tavener.

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There are pieces by around 30 living composers and nearly 90 works which have never been heard at the Proms before.

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Audiences of the future

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In its ongoing commitment to provide greater access to the riches of the Proms, there are three projects which aim to help build audiences of the future.

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91Èȱ¬ Proms: out & about events with the 91Èȱ¬ Symphony Orchestra and 91Èȱ¬ Concert Orchestra take high-quality, live orchestral music-making to the Hammersmith Town Hall and the Hackney Empire as an upbeat to the 2004 season.

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Building on the success of the event with John Adams at the Carling Brixton Academy in 2003, the aim is to provide children from the local communities with the chance to experience the vibrancy of an orchestral concert for the first time.

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In collaboration with the British Library, another project brings together 120 teenage students from the UK's Turkish, Chinese and various other Asian communities in a series of creative workshops culminating in an event involving Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms/Guardian Young Composers Competition, now a well-established strand in the Proms' audience development programme, is expecting more entries than ever from 12 to 18 year olds around the country.

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Participants in all three projects are invited to attend Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.

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There are also major events aimed at attracting younger audiences to the Proms.

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The Blue Peter Prom has been such a popular fixture in recent years that the 91Èȱ¬ Proms is introducing a repeat performance in 2004.

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Hosted by Blue Peter presenters Simon Thomas and Liz Barker, this year's event picks up the East/West theme as Japanese drums and a Chinese Lion Dance troupe join the 91Èȱ¬ Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda.

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The fifth 91Èȱ¬ Children's Prom in the Park, which follows the festivities of the Last Night in Hyde Park, is on Sunday 12 September.

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It introduces the best-loved music of Disney to the Proms with plenty of on-stage action and footage from the classic films relayed on giant screens around the park.

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The organ is back

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A £1.7m refurbishment of the Royal Albert Hall organ, which includes money raised by Proms audiences, puts the country's largest instrument at the heart of the 2004 season.

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It has not been heard by Prommers since 2001 and brings many of the world's leading organists, including Naji Hakim, Martin Neary, Simon Preston, Thomas Trotter and Dame Gillian Weir, to the Proms.

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Solo organ works feature in the 2004 season, from Bach's famous Toccata on the First Night to Barber's Toccata festiva on the Last, and there are many giants of the choral and orchestral repertoire with prominent parts for organ, including Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony, Janáèek's Glagolitic Mass and Britten's War Requiem.

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Great artists

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From Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker to Wynton Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and from William Christie and Les Arts Florissants to Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain, the range of top partnerships is unparalleled.

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Among the other great conductors and orchestras to look out for are Bernard Haitink and the Dresden Staatskapelle, Sir Charles Mackerras and the Czech Philharmonic, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Valery Gergiev who gives his first Prom with the 91Èȱ¬ Symphony Orchestra.

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Outstanding singers permeate the season from Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on the First Night to Thomas Allen on the Last Night.

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Great violinists include the return of Anne-Sophie Mutter (with the Violin Concerto written for her by her husband, André Previn, who conducts it in his first Prom for 17 years), Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Gidon Kremer, Maxim Vengerov and Pinchas Zukerman.

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Among the host of leading pianists, Alfred Brendel plays his last Prom as he retires from live broadcast concerts, while hotly-tipped newcomers Simon Trpèeski and Llyr Williams make their Proms debuts.

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Top opera

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Eight complete operas include Sir Simon Rattle conducting Das Rheingold, on period instruments, in the first instalment of a four-year cycle of Wagner's Ring by different performers; Britten's Curlew River specially staged for the Proms; Holst's Eastern-influenced chamber opera Sâvitri and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.

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Festive finale

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91Èȱ¬ Proms in the Park spreads further on the Last Night than ever before with all the fun of the Last Night of the Proms spilling out of the Royal Albert Hall and into big outdoor events in Belfast, Glasgow, London and Swansea, with Manchester joining the party for the first time.

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As in previous years each city will have its own distinctive concert before joining together with big-screen link-ups for the live relay of the famous finale.

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The concerts are broadcast live across 91Èȱ¬ Radio and Television including Radio 2, Radio Wales, Radio Scotland, Radio Ulster and GMR (Manchester) plus highlights of all five events shown as part of the live coverage of the Last Night of the Proms on 91Èȱ¬ ONE and 91Èȱ¬ TWO.

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The 91Èȱ¬ Proms 2004 Guide is published on Friday 30 April 2004.

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It contains full details of the complete programme of concerts, along with articles about the music and artists, and a priority booking form.

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Priced £5, it is available from all good bookshops and can be ordered from the 91Èȱ¬ Shop, 50 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8SF or by telephone on 0870 241 5490.

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Booking facilities are also available on the 91Èȱ¬ Proms website - - itself a comprehensive source of information and insight into the 2004 Proms season.