Imogen Tilden 

The 2026 Proms: tell us about your favourite concerts

Ahead of Saturday’s Last Night, we want to hear what you’ve enjoyed this year. Has any of the new music made it on to your playlists? Which soloists wowed you? Did you sing along to Hey Jude with the Jupiter Ensemble? Share your listening experiences in the comments
  
  

Conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla directs violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the orchestra onstage
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Oslo Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall on 29 August.
Photograph: BBC/Chris Christodoulou

With 86 concerts over eight weeks, the BBC Proms’ claim to be the world’s greatest and biggest classical music festival is hard to dispute. As the 2026 season draws to a close, we want to hear from you. Which proms have you enjoyed in the Royal Albert Hall, on the radio or online? Did you attend a concert in Bristol, Sunderland, Gateshead or Mold?

Our critics loved the Berlin Phil, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London, the Oslo Philharmonic with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, and Aurora Orchestra’s exploration and performance of Mahler’s 1st among many others; while of the new music premiered this year, Turnage’s Festen Suite was a riot of colour, Thea Musgrave’s Bassoon Concerto was a beguiling treat and Jessie Montgomery’s Cello Concerto a mesmerising highlight.

There were rarities – Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos was fun and brilliantly played by the Jussen brothers, Weber’s Oberon made its Proms debut 200 years after its Covent Garden premiere, and there was a 250-strong choir bringing force and thrill to Berlioz’s Requiem, and then, on at the other extreme, the extraordinary intimacy of the six voices of the Gesualdo Six holding the entire hall rapt with a programme of early music in a late-night prom.

South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo delighted a completely sold-out hall in a late night Prom in early August – I have never been to a concert where teenagers and pensioners alike were dancing and beaming. Listening on the radio, I loved Britten’s Les Illuminations with soprano Julie Roset (part of the Sinfonia of London’s second prom), and was stopped in my tracks by the extraordinary vocal acrobatics on display in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, brought to the Proms in a semi-staging by Glyndebourne.

What did you think? Was there too much Beethoven and Berlioz and not enough Bax ? What pieces did you hear for the first time and fall in love with? (For me, I didn’t know Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and was captivated by the BBC Scottish’s performance).

All our proms reviews are here, every Proms concert can be listened to on BBC Sounds until 11 October and there’s a wide selection to watch on iPlayer, including Martha Argerich’s Beethoven, the National Youth Orchestra conducted by Thomas Adès and the James Bond celebration.

Meanwhile next year is the centenary of the BBC’s funding and running the concerts. What would you like to see in 2027’s festival?

Over to you …

 

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