BBC Proms

BBC Proms, large-scale British music festival, sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The festival focuses on Western classical tradition and is held over an eight-week period each summer.

In 1894 Robert Newman, the manager of London’s newly constructed Queen’s Hall, conceived of a series of concerts that would be available to the public at an affordable price and that would cultivate a broader audience for classical and contemporary art music. To realize his vision, he enlisted the participation of conductor and accompanist Henry Wood, both to conduct the hall’s permanent orchestra and to direct the concert series. The first season of the so-called promenade concerts opened at Queen’s Hall in August 1895.

The concert series soon became known as the Proms and was staged annually by Newman and Wood until Newman’s death in 1926. By that time the orchestra and the Proms were in the thick of financial difficulty, largely attributable to changes in the public’s musical tastes in the wake of World War I (1914–18). In 1927 the BBC assumed sponsorship of the Proms and of Henry Wood’s orchestra. Three years later the orchestra was replaced by the newly established BBC Symphony Orchestra (still under Wood’s direction). During World War II (1939–45), Queen’s Hall was heavily bombed by the German air force, and the Proms consequently moved to London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Wood died in 1944, but the Proms carried on, with the number of concerts and venues expanding significantly over the following decades. Other orchestras were invited to perform, and an array of ancillary events—including a literary festival, assorted workshops and preconcert talks, and various family activities—were organized around the concerts. The audience for the Proms also expanded as the BBC began to broadcast the concerts—first over the radio, then on television, and later on big screens in major parks across Britain and over the World Wide Web. In 2009 the celebratory Last Night of the Proms, traditionally marked by patriotic music and flag waving, was broadcast live via satellite to movie houses around the globe.