Bristol Beacon Prom

Admirably, the BBC Proms are currently happening in UK centres other than the Royal Albert Hall - amongst them Newport, Gateshead, Belfast and Aberdeen. The complete listings are understandably too much information for the already weighty Proms brochure. Which is how I came to be pleasantly surprised by the news just a few days ago that my music was going to have a Proms performance this season; in the Proms 2024 Bristol Beacon, performed by the BBC Singers under Sofi Jeannin.

This concert will mark the opening of the Singers' 100th anniversary season; what an amazing achievement, and what wonderful form they're in at the moment. My piece Madrigal (all two or three minutes of it) probably crept into this historic programme because I wrote it, in 2008, for the tenors and basses of the Singers to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of their then chief conductor, the late and great Sir Stephen Cleobury.

Another amazing feature, when you think about it and don't take for granted, is that practically all of this huge eight-week Festival broadcast is live (and then usually repeated) on BBC Radio 3. That's how I'll be following this Bristol Prom, on Sunday August 25th, at 3pm.

PICTURED - Sorry, Bristolians; I haven't yet managed to visit Bristol Beacon. Instead here's my snap, from former times, of Brandon Hill.