The BBC Proms may not officially be the world’s largest music festival, but it is still huge. The 2025 season comprises over 80 concerts played by more than 60 UK and international ensembles. Here’s my pick of the best.
Piano’s new superstar
August 1
A rush for tickets can be expected for the Prom with Yunchan Lim, the new star of the keyboard and still only 21. He will play Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 4, probably the least often played of the four. In an enterprising programme Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra pair Rachmaninov with John Adams and Luciano Berio, one of this year’s centenary composers.
Sitar virtuosity
August 12
Following her earlier star appearances at the BBC Proms, sitar virtuoso and composer Anoushka Shankar returns to the Proms for world-premiere performances of new orchestral arrangements of music from her “Chapter” album trilogy: Forever, for Now, How Dark It Is Before Dawn, and We Return to Light. Robert Ames conducts the London Contemporary Orchestra.
How and when to book tickets for the BBC Proms
Tickets can be bought online at royalalberthall.com; on the phone on 020 7070 4441 or in person at the Royal Albert Hall, London
9am Thursday May 15
Season and weekend passes go on sale
9am Friday May 16
The following Proms go on sale:
The Traitors (July 26)
Relaxed Prom: The Planets (August 10)
CBeebies Prom: A Magical Bedtime Story (August 25)
9am Saturday May 17
All remaining Proms go on sale, apart from the Last Night of the Proms. For details on booking tickets for the Last Night, visit bbc.co.uk
Beyond Studio Ghibli
August 14
Admirers of Joe Hisaishi, the longtime composer colleague of Japanese film director and animator Hayao Miyazaki, will welcome his Proms debut, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. An extract from Hisaishi’s score for My Neighbour Totoro was played in 2023, but this concert will feature a major work, The End of the World, his vision of a post-nuclear wasteland. It is paired with Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, settings of William Carlos Williams’s poetry in response to the bombing of Hiroshima.
A grand Renaissance choral work
August 17
Alongside the Proms’ usual large-scale Romantic choral works comes a Renaissance equivalent when Le Concert Spirituel and its founder Hervé Niquet perform Alessandro Striggio’s mass Ecco sì beato giorno. Written around 1565, the mass was on a previously unknown scale, culminating in an “Agnus Dei” in 40 parts. Le Concert Spirituel perform it alongside more Striggio and music by 16th- and 17th-century composers Benevolo, Corteccia and Palestrina.
Klaus Mäkelä, conducting wunderkind
August 23 and 24
With two orchestras in the bag and future appointments pending at two of the world’s top 10, Klaus Mäkelä promises to be the jet-set king. This pair of concerts offers the first opportunity at the BBC Proms to see him with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he is chief conductor designate. Mäkelä’s programmes include Luciano Berio’s Rendering, his “restoration” of the fragments Schubert left for a last symphony, and showpiece orchestral scores by Mahler and Bartók.
Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth’
September 1
The 2025 season could hardly neglect the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death. Eight Proms will feature his music, the most ambitious being this concert performance of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Banned in the Soviet Union for almost 30 years, it remains an opera of blistering force and passion today. Amanda Majeski and Nicky Spence lead the cast. John Storgårds conducts the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ten years of Chineke!
September 5
In a unique pairing, Simon Rattle appears for the first time with Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s pioneering orchestra of Black and ethnically diverse musicians. This year marks 10 years since Chineke! was founded and over that period it has built an international reputation. Rattle, a longtime supporter, conducts music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, George Walker and Shostakovich.
And finally . . .
September 13
The Last Night of the Proms brings the eight-week season to a close. There are no changes this year to the time-honoured traditions. Trumpeter Alison Balsom is the instrumental soloist, soprano Louise Alder steps up for the patriotic hymns, and Elim Chan conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the last date in their nonstop BBC Proms summer schedule.
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