Chineke! at the BBC Proms

Experience the ‘electric atmosphere’ of a performance by the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. WE will perform Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony: over 50 minutes of brutality, violence, despair and terror, followed by two minutes of triumph. A portrait of life – and death – in Stalin’s Russia, it’s a fierce act of musical testimony. Bearing witness is also central to Pulitzer-winner George Walker’s Sinfonia No. 5, a work ‘suffused with anger’, raging against the 2015 Charleston church massacre. The Prom opens with the steady thrum of Coleridge-Taylor’s orchestral dance The Bamboula.

Change of conductor

Sadly Sir Simon Rattle is unable to conduct our BBC Proms concert on Friday 5 September. Sir Simon must undergo surgery for a hernia in the next few days, and we wish him a full and speedy recovery. 

Chineke! is hugely grateful to Jonathon Heyward, who will be stepping in to conduct this performance.