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Dam Busters fly in for film night at the Proms
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 25.04.07
John Williams's soundtrack for Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone will feature in the concert
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The 113th BBC Proms will celebrate great British films with a concert of scores from classics such as The Dam Busters and Shakespeare In Love.
Marking the 60th anniversary of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the concert at the Royal Albert Hall will include Malcolm Arnold's music for The Bridge On The River Kwai and John Williams's soundtrack for Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone.
Announcing this year's programme of concerts today, Nicholas Kenyon, the Proms controller, said: "Some of the best music by British composers was written for film so we thought it might be a good moment to celebrate that."
The Bridge On The River Kwai will be screened in a separate series of events on film and music, together with WH Auden's film-poem Night Mail, with the soundtrack by Benjamin Britten. There will also be a season of great British movies on BBC2.
The Proms, from 13 July to 8 September, will comprise 90 concerts covering eight centuries of music. Performers will include Michael Ball, Cleo Laine, violinist Maxim Vengerov and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a season that will be mainly classical but with bursts of musicals, jazz and world music.
Themes will also include works either commissioned by the BBC or given their British premiere at the Proms, including pieces by Mahler, Walton, Ravel and Shostakovich.
The first Brass Day will bring together 200 players, including the Black Dyke and Grimethorpe Colliery Bands.
There will also be the first Proms performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung, bringing its four-year Ring cycle to a close. Another theme is Shakespeare and music, with a variety of works from the large-scale with Verdi's Macbeth to intimate song settings by 18th-century composer Thomas Arne.
The half-century of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story is marked with excerpts in three concerts. Composers honoured for special anniversaries are Edward Elgar, born 150 years ago, and Jean Sibelius, who died 50 years ago.
Mr Kenyon, who will take over as chief executive of the Barbican in the autumn, said: "Twelve seasons is a very good length of time to have done the Proms so, even if I wasn't going on to do something else, it's a good idea for someone else to have a go."
He said he saw no signs that the BBC was wavering in its commitment to the Proms, but added that they should continue to evolve.
He suggested the Last Night, loved by millions and loathed by others for its jingoism, may be the one element his successor Roger Wright, controller of BBC Radio 3 which broadcasts the Proms, might have to decide how to "move on".
