Here's all you need to know about today's concert at the BBC Proms 2024, taking place at the Royal Albert Hall.
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What's on at the BBC Proms today?
So, what will you hear at the BBC Proms today? Tonight's Prom is Prom 16 (Wednesday 31 July). It features a performance of a 2022 work by the Canadian composer Cassandra Miller. I cannot love without trembling is a concerto for viola and orchestra. It's a co-commission by BBC Radio 3, the Brussels Philharmonic, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Miller explains something of the genesis of the work on her website. 'In the last year of her life, the French philosopher Simone Weil wrote in a letter to her friend Gustave Thibon, ‘Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling (...) This concerto is about the basic human need to lament (...) I sought a metaphysical space in which to dream – a space of separation-connection-absence-presence – in the hope to lament and to dream together.'
The soloist for I cannot love without trembling is viola player Lawrence Power. He is accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic and the conductor John Storgårds, one of an extraordinary clutch of superb Finnish conductors working today.
The concert at the BBC Proms today also features a performance of the grand, bombastic Symphony No. 4 by the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. One of the composer's most popular symphonies, this three-movement work bears the influence of Mahler.
What time does the BBC Proms concert start today?
Prom 16 begins at 7.30pm.
And how much are tickets?
Tickets range from £10 to £44. Or, you can do as hundreds do for each Prom, and become a Day Prommer, queueing for the chance of an £8 ticket.
