15 Facts About BBC Proms

BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London.

The Proms were founded in 1895, and are now organised and broadcast by the BBC.

BBC Proms decided to disband the New Queen's Hall Orchestra, which played for the last time at a Symphony concert on 19 March 1927.

BBC Proms found it more expedient to let the Queen's Hall to the broadcasting powers, rather than to continue the Promenade concerts and other big series independently in an unequal competition with what was effectively the Government itself.

BBC Proms continue today, and still present newly commissioned music alongside pieces more central to the repertoire and early music.

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From 1998 to 2007, the Blue Peter Prom, in partnership with long-running BBC Proms television programme Blue Peter, was an annual fixture.

Between 1986 and 2014, the post of Director, BBC Proms had mostly been combined with the role of Controller, BBC Radio 3.

The BBC Proms released details of the season slightly earlier than usual, on 9 April 2008.

Just over a month before the announcement of the season, Margaret Hodge, a Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport suggested "that the BBC Proms was one of several big cultural events that many people did not feel comfortable attending" and advocated an increase in multicultural works and an effort to broaden the audience.

The 2009 BBC Proms featured Bollywood music for the first time, as part of a day-long series of concerts and events covering Indian classical music.

The 2011 BBC Proms season featured new works by Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Pascal Dusapin, Graham Fitkin, Thomas Larcher, Kevin Volans, Judith Weir, and Stevie Wishart.

Prom 62, featuring the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on 1 September 2011, was taken off air by the BBC Proms following vocal anti-Israeli protests from some members of the audience.

The 2017 BBC Proms season featured 7 female conductors, the greatest number of female conductors in a single BBC Proms season to that point.

Many people's perception of the BBC Proms is based on the Last Night, although this is very different from the other concerts.

However, some more traditional elements of the Last Night of the BBC Proms have been removed on some years depending on local politics.