The concert photographer Chris Christodoulou has been taking pictures at the BBC Proms for 35 years. Even more than the musicians under their baton, he spends his time watching conductors like a hawk, observing their every gesture and grimace. Every year the wackier images, which convey less dignity but more truth, don’t make it into the public eye.
Or they didn’t until we at The Arts Desk entered into collaboration with Christodoulou. This year we publish our seventh gallery of his action portraits. Normally we publish only one snap per conductor. This time round, to help the Proms along with the project of improving gender and ethnic diversity among conductors, there are two images each of Rafael Payere, the Venezuelan graduate of El Sistema, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the new music director of the CBSO who made her Proms debut this year.
- Enjoy Chris Christodoulou’s previous conductors galleries: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
- Chris Christodoulou on the fine art of shooting conductors
- Read all theartsdesk's reviews of the BBC Proms
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