The Traitors presenter Claudia Winkleman will host a concert for this year’s BBC Proms as the classical music festival reveals its 2025 line-up.
The eight weeks of 86 Proms, made up of orchestras and musicians from the UK and around the world, will be on from July to September at the Royal Albert Hall and elsewhere in the UK.
British singer-songwriter Angeline Morrison, Beninese artist and songwriter Angelique Kidjo, US musician St Vincent and British conductor Sir Simon Rattle also feature in the series of Proms.
Winkleman, 53, will host a matinee and evening Traitors-themed Prom which will explore the “themes of treachery and betrayal in classical music”, according to the BBC.
It will have a range of famous classical works, alongside new arrangements of some of the music from the popular psychological reality programme, which has been scored by British-Canadian composer Sam Watts.
There will also be guest appearances from contestants, and it will feature the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers, conducted by Karen Ni Bhroin.
The BBC has not named The Traitors stars coming along. The latest third series featured retired opera singer Linda Rands and former diplomat Alexander Dragonetti, who since the show has, for a stint, become a Classic FM presenter.
As the Shipping Forecast celebrates its centenary on the BBC this year, it will be celebrated with an event with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast.
It will feature music inspired by the sea, with a new work composed and performed by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, his band LYR, and appearances from BBC Radio 4 voices.
Five-time Grammy Award-winner Kidjo will also return, following her 2019 Proms debut, as she heads to the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture festival.
Kidjo will pay tribute to her “African heritage” by performing tracks from Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti, Hugh Masekela and Youssou N’Dour, and will have a “UK premiere” of African Symphony, which she collaborated on with arranger Derrick Hodge.
Sam Jackson, controller, Radio 3 and BBC Proms, said: “Our summer of live music will see us host the greatest international orchestras and the best of British talent, in repertoire that ranges from the much-loved to the entirely new.
“World-famous soloists such as Hilary Hahn and Sir Andras Schiff sit alongside some of today’s brightest young classical stars, from Yunchan Lim, to Aigul Akhmetshina, to Louise Alder, who performs at the Last Night of the Proms.”
There will also be a new BBC commission from Sir John Rutter, who created pieces for the late Queen’s platinum jubilee and the coronation of the King, written for the BBC Singers.
Three-time Grammy-winning singer St Vincent will make her Proms debut as she takes to the stage with Jules Buckley and the English conductor’s orchestra, while Sir Simon is among those who are marking the 50 years since the death of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.
Sir Simon will bring to life Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 as he conducts the Chineke! Orchestra for the first time in their 10th anniversary year.
They will also perform works by British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and US composer George Walker.
Sir Simon also returns to the Proms with the wind, brass and percussion of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) for a concert including folk-song arrangements by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Sir Malcolm Arnold and Australian composer Percy Grainger.
Sir Simon concluded his time as the London Symphony Orchestra’s (LSO) music director in 2023, after more than five years at the helm.
The First Night of the Proms is conducted by chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, while Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan oversees the Last Night of the Proms.
Last year, their roles were reversed with Oramo ending the Proms, while Chan began it.
Other highlights include a commission for Rachel Portman, the first female composer to win an Academy Award, which she received for the score of Jane Austen 1996 adaptation Emma; a celebration of Alfred Hitchcock collaborator and conductor Bernard Herrmann; and Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi’s debut conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in his symphony inspired by Hiroshima.
The Proms take place from July 18 to September 13.
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