Category: london

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Prom 35 – John Wilson conducts Oklahoma!

Every prom season I take a look to see what the John Wilson and his orchestra will be offering and this years performance of Oklahoma was superb.

A well chosen cast including Belinda Lang & comedian Marcus Brigstocke supported the orchestra fantastically. The sounds from both the singers and orchestra was wonderfully rich – full of life and energy. A few dodgy american accents but that can be forgiven for the skills of the singers.

My one small downside – we were sat in the Grand Tier box 39 which was right in line with the front of the stage. This meant acoustics of the snare drum were bad. The sound was returning from the back wall to my ears a few milliseconds behind everything else. Annoying for parts with loud snare – but otherwise fine.

As usual an excellent evening with John Wilson and his Orchestra. Will be back again next year I hope.

Oklahoma @ BBC Proms

If you have access to BBC IPlayer – Prom 35 Oklahoma 

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Prom 8 – Celebrating John Williams

I never thought I would get to use my tickets for prom 8 – but the flight gods smiled at the right time and I got a “reasonable” ticket price over for a quick 23hr jaunt to London.

Prom 8 was a celebration of the work of John Williams. We didnt get a chance to grab a programme on the way in – so were guessing as the lights went down what the running order would be. What we be a good opener, what would end the show well.

Nobody was disappointed. Starting with Raiders of the Lost Ark, ending with three pieces from Star Wars, and filled out with lesser known works in the middle from The Terminal, Catch Me if you Can & The Witches of Eastwick.

The soloists during the evening all came from the various BBC young talent programmes. There were great soloists – but some of their body movements were slightly off putting…..

The encore was a fantastic surprise, after finishing off the concert with the three star wars tracks, the crowd wanted more and more – so out came the Cantina Theme from the first star wars movie. A great big busting number to end the night.

The prom is on the BBC Iplayer if you have access here

The full programme :

John Williams
Raider’s March from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (5 mins)
Overture to ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ (4 mins)
Main Theme from ‘Jaws’ (3 mins)
March from ‘Superman’ (4 mins)
Suite for Cello and Orchestra from Memoirs of a Geisha: No. 1 Sayuri’s Theme (5 mins)
The Tale of Viktor Navorski from ‘The Terminal’ (4 mins)
Dartmoor, 1912 from ‘War Horse’ (7 mins)
‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ – Hedwig’s Theme (5 mins)
A Child’s Tale: Suite from the BFG (5 mins)
Flying Theme from ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (4 mins)

INTERVAL

John Williams
Suite from J.F.K., 1st mvt: Theme from J.F.K (4 mins)
Prayer for Peace from ‘Munich’ (4 mins)
Dry Your Tears, Afrika from ‘Amistad’ (4 mins)
Devil’s Dance from ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ (5 mins)
Escapades (No. 3) for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra from ‘Catch me if you Can’ (5 mins)
March of the Resistance from ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ (2 mins)
Rey’s Theme from ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ (3 mins)
Main Title from ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (4 mins)