BBC Proms 2024 Preview: theartsdesk recommends…

So maybe there’s a bigger quota of popular Proms, leading Stephen Walsh to lambast what he sees as "junk" to avoid. It surely doesn’t matter. Among the 89 concerts, some of them beyond the Royal Albert Hall, the mix of old and new, middle-of-the-road and deeply serious, is as strong as ever. There’s no dumbing-down.

A recent online article for a paper which should know better posits well-known classics as “lowbrow”. When it comes to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini or Holst’s The Planets, there’s no such thing: these masterpieces are popular for a reason. Many Prommers will be hearing them for the first time; those of us who know and love them would be happy to encounter them again in their Proms contexts – in the first case, a fascinating Nottingham sequence, in the second, young college and academy musicians from the UK and Finland under the great Sakari Oramo.

It remains for me to repeat what I wrote this time last year: that new works and women conductors are well represented again, and that the best place in the hall, standing in the Arena, still only costs £8. You can even book online (booking fee included). So to the choices of our team; it's perhaps no surprise that there's some overlap. David Nice

Rachel Halliburton

Hong Kong-born Elim Chan (pictured below at last year's Proms by Sisi Burn), the first female conductor to win the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, takes the helm for this year's first night (Prom 1, 19 July), in which the eldest of the Kanneh-Mason siblings, Isata, plays Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto. There's no shortage of crowd pleasers - Beethoven's Fifth and Handel's Overture to Music for the Royal Fireworks arranged by Charles Mackerras also feature – as well as Hallelujah Sim, a new work by Anglo-Japanese composer Ben Nobuto. Prom 10 (26 July) is a fascinating exploration of British music from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. It opens with the symphonic suite from Britten’s Gloriana and ends with Elgar's Janus-headed Second Symphony. In between, cellist Laura van der Heijden plays Cheryl Frances-Hoad's climate change Cello Concerto, Earth, Sea, Air, which premiered last year in Glasgow.

Miranda Heggie

Prom 8 (24 July)  brings together musicians from myriad traditions under the baton of genre blurring conductor Jules Buckley. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is joined by the likes of American multi-instrumentalist and songwriter BC Camplight and classical/folk singer and pianist Olivia Chaney to explore the tender and evocative music of Nick Drake, 50 years after his untimely death aged 26.

In their second night (Prom 50, 28 August), Jakub Hrůša and the Czech Philharmonic bring the dazzling maximalism of their compatriot Leos Janáček with a performance of his Glagolitic Mass. This all-Czech programme also includes Dvořák’s Piano Concerto with rising Japanese star Mao Fujita as the soloist.

Bernard Hughes

I would have liked to have gone to the Nick Drake Orchestral Tribute (Prom 8, 24 July) – I love Nick Drake (pictured right) and I suspect his music will translate well to the different medium – but sadly I am out of the country. Of those I shall be going to, perhaps I am most looking forward to Prom 44 (23 August) when the Rotterdam Philharmonic play Lili Boulanger, Debussy, Ravel and Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with Lahav Shani taking on the dual role of soloist and conductor. Quite an undertaking.

David Nice

I’m lucky to have had an overview of what our other classical/opera writers have chosen, so instead of overlap I’ll go for two of the late splendours: Mozart’s version of Handel’s Messiah at the end of the big Choral Day (Prom 65, 7 September) with a dream team of soloists including the peerless Helen Charlston conducted by John Butt, and a chance to heat what the Carlos Kleiber of our times, Kirill Petrenko, and his Berlin Philharmonic make of Smetana’s Má vlast, several months after their Prague Spring Festival appearances (Prom 55, 31 August).

Sebastian Scotney

Among the first ten Proms for which tickets sold out on the very first morning of booking in May was Prom 42 (21 August) from the Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon, plus soloists including the opulent-voiced Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha (pictured below by Chris Christodoulou in a Proms performance of Verdi's Requiem) who will be performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's the 200th anniversary of the piece and Aurora will celebrate the occasion by performing it from memory, and in an "Orchestral Theatre" version. Aurora itself will be 20 years old next year - the orchestra's very first concert was in April 2005. Aurora's ways of performing were once derided as "gimmicks". No longer. 

 Simon Thompson

There are lots of good concerts and interesting programmes this summer, but the really big Proms are *events*, and these are two unmissable ones. First, the Turangalila Symphony (Prom 15, 30 July). Messiaen's great hymn to love, ecstasy and eternity  is always an event. It'll sound great as played by Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic. Anna Clyne is one of the most engaging voices in contemporary music, and the premiere of her new piece The Gorgeous Nothings is equally exciting.

It's quite a programme that has Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances in the first half. That's because the second half of Prom 23 (5 August) contains the most gargantuan concerto of them all. Busoni's Piano Concerto is basically the Wagner Ring of the concerto repertoire. Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor will probably need a lie down after finishing it. Come to think of it, most of the audience will, too. Boyd Tonkin

Two contrasting masterworks inspired by the evergreen magic of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream are top of my bill: Purcell’s The Fairy Queen from Les Arts Florissants and choreographer Mourad Merzouki (Prom 24, 6 August), and Garsington Opera’s version of Britten’s Dream (Prom 68, 10 September, Garsington Opera production pictured above by Craig Fuller).

Stephen Walsh

Easier to list the Proms I don't want to hear this year, but in among the junk there are of course quite a few goodies. The two that stand out for me are both single works: the great Masaaki Suzuki conducting Bach's St John Passion, the more severe (and shorter) of the two Passion settings (Prom 40, 19 August 19); and the semi-staged Garsington production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Prom 68, 10 September). I was desperate to see this on its home territory, but there was a clash, and anyway the Proms semi-stagings usually have a vitality of their own.

• The 2024 BBC Proms begin tomorrow, 19 July, and run through to 14 September. Full details here
• The BBC Proms on theartsdesk