2019 was the orchestra’s seventh season of concerts and our own version of Last Night at the Proms.

 

The Proms is a celebrated music festival which has been held annually in London since 1895. It consists of eight weeks of concerts and other music activities and is held mostly in the Royal Albert Hall. The name “Proms” is short for Promenades, or outdoor concerts, where earlier audiences could walk about in a garden atmosphere as they enjoyed the music being performed.

 

The last night of the Proms is the final concert of the festival and is broadcast world-wide each year by the BBC.

The concert begins its first half with a gala program of popular classics in a formal atmosphere.

 

However, in the second half of the program, the atmosphere becomes increasingly informal. The program features British music and in particular, a set of popular British songs which have become a traditional fare of the Last Night of the Proms since 1954 when Sir Malcolm Sargent was conductor of the orchestra.

 

These traditional songs include Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem. The anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone   from the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s production Carousel was added to the traditional program in 2011. Although not a British song, it has been adopted by the Liverpool football team and is played in our program in an arrangement which includes Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music, also written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

 

The Proms audience expects to sing along to these songs and does so with great gusto. Costumes, flags, balloons and streamers are all part of the second half of the concert. Our Master of Ceremonies is Ben Hood, popular and enthusiastic local identity who will be encouraging our audiences to raise their voices with those of the Symphonic Chorus and simply enjoy being part of the party atmosphere.

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Download a copy of the 2019 Program Booklet here. (99kb PDF)