The National Open Youth Orchestra at the BBC Proms

Elizabeth Alker with great summer making making with concert performances from home and abroad including highlights from the BBC Proms, plus exclusive recordings from the Verbier Music Festival and the Granada Early Music Festival.

In a specially recorded concert from the BBC Proms, The National Open Youth Orchestra – the world’s first disabled-led national youth ensemble – and members of BBC NOW perform Charlotte Harding’s bold re-imagining of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, as well as music spanning the sound-pictures of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to Florence Price’s toe-tapping Juba Dance and Michael Betteridge’s concerto for Clarion, an accessible instrument.

Also, more from Monday night’s Proms performance by the combined Juilliard Orchestra and Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in Berg’s Violin Concerto with the amazingly talented violinist Vilde Frang.

From Copenhagen's 2026 Festival & Friends, Nordic ensemble Trio Theros perform Smetana's Piano Trio Op.15, and from Verbier, Marc Bouchkov and Julien Quentin play Debussy.

BBC Proms:
Franz Liszt
Mephisto Waltz No. 1
National Youth Orchestra
Thomas Adès (conductor)

Copenhagen Festival & Friends:
Bedrich Smetana
Piano Trio in G Minor Op.15
Trio Theros

Granada Festival:
Claudio Monteverdi
O Teseo, Teseo mio (Lamento d’Arianna, SV 107 (Madrigales, Libro VI. 1614)
Ensemble InAlto
Lambert Colson (cornett/director)

Verbier Festival:
Claude Debussy
Violin Sonata
Marc Bouchkov (violin)
Julien Quentin (piano)

Gerald Finzi
Eclogue
Yeol-Eum Son, piano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor

BBC PROMS:
The complete BBC Prom from the Bristol Beacon introduced for Classical Live by Alexander Humphreys
Antonio Vivaldi
The Four Seasons - excerpts (arr. Rhian Davies and Ellen O'Brien)
Florence Price
Symphony No. 1 – Juba Dance (3rd mvt) (arr. Rhian Davies)
Oliver Cross
Barriers (arr. Liam Taylor-West)
Michael Betteridge
Soaring Through Sparks (Clarion Concerto) (arr. Julia Koelmans)
Charlotte Harding
The Orchestra: A Young Person’s Guide (arr. Liam Taylor-West)
BBC commission
Niamh Moriarty (narrator)
Alessandro Vazzana (clarion)
National Open Youth Orchestra
Players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Alice Farnham (conductor)

BBC PROMS:
Alban Berg
Violin Concerto
Vilde Frang (violin)
Juilliard Orchestra
Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra
Esa‐Pekka Salonen (conductor)