August 23, 2007
Farewell to the Proms
Published by New Stasteman
By Nicholas Kenyon*

How to avoid coming down with "cancellitis", finding time to eat, and nearing the end of an extraordinary 12-year adventure

"Two months of Proms concerts take years to plan and then flash by with all-consuming intensity. I've been spending every evening and many days at the Royal Albert Hall, and with an ever-increasing number of complex events to run, there rarely seems time to eat, never mind relax. And even the best-prepared plans can go wrong. Cancellations at music festivals have been in the news lately: Salzburg is said to be riddled with "cancellitis" by stars, and some of their opera casts have changed radically. We try to avoid those problems by being programme-driven, not performer-driven, so that when some ailment strikes, we can usually find a replacement artist willing to take on the same work. But we had a tough problem on our hands when the violinist Maxim Vengerov decided that an injury meant that he was unable to perform in a recent Saturday late-night Prom. Exceptionally, because he has been such a draw for Proms audiences in recent years, we had mounted this concert especially for him with the London Symphony Orchestra. How to give the concert an equal sense of occasion, and maintain some of its Latin American flavour?

Due to arrive at the Proms the very next day were the spectacular Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, whose achievements were explored in the NS by Alice O'Keeffe (13 August). When I'd heard them earlier this year, I'd also heard a wonderful extra concert by their brass ensemble. Would they step into the gap? Many phone calls later it looked as if the schedule might just work, with the full orchestra in Edinburgh on the Friday night, to rush the brass players down on Saturday morning for a rehearsal and put them on after the LSO at 11pm. With the help of the LSO and a good deal of programme rejigging, we got there, and the Venezuelan Brass and their inspiring conductor offered something the press called 'unforgettable' - it went on until after midnight, and the crowds stayed to cheer".

Mexican waves

On the evidence of the full orchestra's Prom on the Sunday, the story of the "El Sistema" music education network is for real. The orchestra is a collection of phenomenal virtuosi who make music with a physicality, abandon, precision and lack of fear too rarely glimpsed in western ensembles. Their Proms debut was one of the most remarkable occasions of recent years, as the reviews have reflected: they played, they swayed, they danced, they did Mexican waves with their instruments and threw their colourful Venezuelan jackets to the thrilled Prommers. But they also played Shostakovich and Bernstein at the very highest level.

The stakes have now become high for the Venezuelans, because the orchestra's young conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, who came up through the same system as his players, is a visceral talent who has quickly become one of the most sought-after artists in the classical music world. He is already the conductor of an excellent orchestra in Gothenburg, and was recently appointed to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, an exposed and prestigious position which brought international media to the Albert Hall to check him out. Can the Venezuelans hang on to him?

Wagner to Blue Peter

Only a couple of weeks to go now in the last season of BBC Proms for which I'll be responsible. Let's hope there will be no incidents like the tiny fire that cancelled a concert in the last week last year. It's been an extraordinary adventure across 12 years, in which time we've managed to bring 1,000 works new to Proms audiences, from Wagner opera to medieval motets and a whole range of new music and commissions, creating Blue Peter Proms for a new generation and bringing young performers into the Proms.

Yes, we've had our big challenges, from Diana's death a decade ago, to responding to 9/11 and the London bombs. But that's what the Proms are all about: the willingness of artists to be flexible and respond, to create the greatest possible musical variety and excellence for our amazingly open-minded audiences".

*Nicholas Kenyon directed the BBC Proms from 1996 to 2007, and becomes managing director of the Barbican Centre in October