The first of 76 concerts in the 118th Henry Woods Promenade Concerts season gets underway at London’s Royal Albert Hall today at 2:30 p.m. Eastern (7:30 p.m. if you’re near Greenwich Observatory). Many will be available for listening on the Web.
Tonight’s event is an all-English programme filled with goodies we rarely get to hear live on this side of the pond. That includes Frederick Delius’s enchanting Sea Drift, a nearly 100-year-old choral tone-poem, a setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry, especially “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.”
One of the stars of tonight’s concert is Ottawa-born baritone Gerald Finley, who sets off for Ontario to sing next week at Koerner Hall (with pianist Stehen Ralls) and the concert barn at Westben in Campbellford.
On Saturday young University of Toronto grad, baritone Phillip Addis, is the star of a concert performance of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande from Royal Albert Hall, starting at 2 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. GMT). Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts.
To listen (or stream this and other Proms concerts for seven days after the live broadcast), click here.
This incredible summer of musical riches lasts to Sept. 8, with something interesting to catch daily every day in between.
John Terauds