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±«Óãtv PROMS 2009 ON WORLD SERVICE

18 – 19 July

Launching the celebrations of Stravinsky (Fireworks), Multiple Pianos and more, the First Night of the 2009 season features the French piano duo Katia and Marielle Labèque in Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Irish soprano Ailish Tynan in Chabrier’s Ode a la musique.

25-26 July

We mark Cambridge University's 800th anniversary with a concert given by a convocation of the university's college choirs. The music, the soloists and the conductor are all closely connected with the University. As Professor of Music, Stanford (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in A major) taught Vaughan Williams, who later set verses by a former University Orator, George Herbert, in his Five Mystical Songs.

01-02 August

The youngest ever winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai, returns to the Proms with two works which blend Spanish and French influences: Ravel’s Tzigane and Sarasate’s 'Carmen' Fantasy. The key influence on Suwanai’s compatriot Takemitsu (Green) was another Frenchman: Debussy.

08-09 August

The ±«Óãtv Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor Gianandrea Noseda are joined by the brilliant young Scottish bassoonist Karen Geoghegan, who was a popular runner-up in ±«Óãtv TV’s Classical Star in 2007 and here makes her Proms debut in Mozart's Bassoon Concerto. The celebrated partnership between Stravinsky and ballet impresario Diaghilev began a hundred years ago: we mark it with the 'featherweight and sugared' Scènes de ballet he wrote for a 1944 Broadway revue.

15-16 August

Works for multiple pianos run through the 2009 Proms season: here we have Fauré's delightful Dolly suite, originally written for two players at one keyboard and Saint-Saëns's playful suite The Carnival of the Animals, perhaps the best-loved work for the medium. The Serbian piano duo Lidija and Sanja Bizjak make their Proms debut.

22-23 August

Hungary's leading orchestra returns to the Proms with Dvořák's most darkly dramatic and passionate symphony, commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London and premiered under its auspices in 1885. Ivan Fisher conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

29-30 August

Two 2009 anniversary composers, Handel and Haydn, are on the menu of this concert with the American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. She performs two Handel arias as well as Haydn's 'mad scene' for the distraught Berenice, who begs the gods to let her join her lover in death.

05-06 September

China’s pianist of the moment, Lang Lang, returns to the Royal Albert Hall to perform Chopin's poetic F minor Concerto with Staatskapelle Dresden under its current Chief Conductor, Fabio Luisi, here making his Proms debut.

12- 13 September

As has become a tradition, a double bill for the final weekend of the 2009 season:

Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená sings a selection of Duparc’s songs. Duparc left us just two dozen vocal works, yet each is a gem of textual subtlety and melodic inspiration. With the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons.

The Last Night brings trumpeter Alison Balsom, in a concerto by one anniversary composer (Haydn), and singer Sarah Connolly in a famous lament by another (Purcell), while a third (Handel) provides the main orchestral fireworks. Oliver Knussen's own Flourish (sparked by Stravinsky's Fireworks from the First Night) is complemented by new fanfares specially written by young Proms Inspire composers, which feature in our link-up with Last Night festivities around the UK. ±«Óãtv Symphony Orchestra's David Robertson presides for the first time over the massed forces on stage and in the audience.

[12 September: live on digital shortwave (DRM). Highlights on Sunday 13 September]

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