The 25 must-see Proms

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Ready to put on a show: sold out hall for the Proms

Prom 17: Mali's Bassekou Kouyate

Proms 38&39: Daniel Barenboim

Performer: Cape Verdean Mayra Andrade

Proms 2&3: Nigel Kennedy

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From Daleks to Morris dancers, Stockhausen to Pomp and Circumstance, Pierre Boulez to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 2008 Proms caters for all tastes, prejudices and proclivities as never before. In his first year as director, BBC Radio 3 controller Roger Wright has devised a season big on international stars, anniversaries and novelty - in keeping with Proms tradition since the "world's largest music festival" began under the baton of Sir Henry Wood in 1895.

The hot tickets, as ever, are the international orchestras - the Chicago Symphony with Bernard Haitink, the Berlin Phil with Simon Rattle, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with its founder Daniel Barenboim. You can also catch conducting ace Gustavo Dudamel, fabled pianist Murray Perahia, fiddle wizard Nigel. Or be bold and sample one of the 11 BBC commissions or nine UK premieres, a late-night Prom or a Cadogan Hall chamber event. Or go retro-groovy with John Tavener's 1968 epic, The Whale, or transcendental with his new Cantus Mysticus.

The major anniversary composers are Vaughan Williams, Messiaen and Elliott Carter. Then, at the gorgeously popular end, all Rachmaninov's works for piano and orchestra will be played. Firsts this year include a Literary Festival, a free Prom and ceilidh on Folk Day and a new Sunday afternoon recital series. To cap it all, tenor legend Jose Carerras tops the bill at Proms in the Park, in Hyde Park, with Bryn Terfel leading Rule, Britannia! inside the Albert Hall on the Last Night.

All Proms are broadcast on BBC Radio 3, with more than ever televised and available through BBC iPlayer. Best of all, be there in the Albert Hall. Arena and some standing Gallery tickets, the real Promming experience, still cost only £5. A season ticket brings that down to £2.23 per concert. They're the best seats in the house, never mind that you're standing, and up to 1,400 tickets are sold on the day of each performance, so if you haven't booked yet, there's no need to panic.

(Additional recommendations from Simon Broughton, Norman Lebrecht and Barry Millington)

PROM 1: OPENING NIGHT
8pm, Friday 1 July
The wonder-Finn, Karita Mattila, sings Strauss's Four Last Songs - a beguiling combination of singer and work. The second half of Messiaen, Carter and Scriabin is so odd it might even be good.

PROMS 2&3: NIGEL FOREVER
6.30pm, 10pm, Saturday 19 July
Kennedy in the Elgar Concerto in the earlier Prom; Kennedy with his Polish jazz quintet for the late-night. What's not to love?

PROMS 4&5: FOLK DAY
3.30pm, 7.30pm, Sunday 20 July
Folk has recently become cool - and the Proms Folk Day includes Kathryn Tickell and Hungary's leading exponents of Transylvanian dance tunes, Muzsik·s, in the earlier event; and the sensational folk big band Bellowhead, Martin Simpson and Bella Hardy later.

PROM 8: RENAISSANCE GLORIES
10-11.30pm, Tue 22 July
A late-night Prom of Flemish polyphony, including Josquin des Prez's Missa "Malheur me bat", sung by the superb Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips.

PROM 11: LIGHT AND COLOUR
7.30pm, Friday 25 July
Simon Holt has one of the most individual voices in British composition today and his exploration of colour in Troubled Light should sit well alongside Debussy's Nocturnes and Musorgsky's Pictures.

PROM 12: ALL-STAR ADES
7pm, Saturday 26 July
Bass-baritone Sir John Tomlinson, pianist Louis Lortie and Birmingham's CBSO choir and orchestra join conductor-composer Thomas Adès for Musorgsky, Prokofiev and Adès's own awardwinning Tevot.

PROM 16: HAIL TO THE HALLE
7.30pm, Tuesday 29 July
The Hallé is 150 years old this year and sounding better than ever under Mark Elder. Their Strauss/Vaughan Williams/Bruch Prom is bound to be memorable.

PROM 17: WORLD MUSIC CELEBRATION
7pm, Wednesday 30 July
World music started at the Proms in the 1970s but there was nothing on this scale. Meet the winners of the BBC Awards for World Music, Bassekou Kouyate from Mali and Mayra Andrade from Cape Verde.

PROM 19: LIVERPUDLIAN PREMIERE
8pm, Friday 1 August
The Royal Liverpool Phil, with the BBC, has co-commissioned a new work from local boy Kenneth Hesketh, Graven Image, played with Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, soloist Paul Lewis, and Rachmaninov's invigorating Symphonic Dances.

PROMS 20&21: STOCKHAUSEN DAY
6pm, 10:15pm, Saturday 2 August
Alas, bad-boy avant-gardist Karlheinz didn't live to join in the 80th birthday celebrations, which include two performances of Gruppen and, in a late-night concert, Paul Hillier and the Theatre of Voices in the stunning Stimmung.

PROM 29: AUSTERITY NIGHT
7pm, Friday 8 August
Vaughan Williams's post-war Sixth Symphony, paired with the structural severities of Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody: a night that's good for the soul. Leonard Slatkin conducts.

PROM 33: Enigmatic Elgar
7.30pm, Sunday 10 August
New works by Michael Berkeley and Stuart MacRae alongside Sibelius and Elgar's Enigma Variations, with the brilliant young music director of ENO, Edward Gardner, in charge.

PROM 34: JUST ONE TABARRO
7.30pm, Monday 11 August
Puccini's one-act Il Tabarro, conducted by Italian Gianandrea Noseda, paired with Rachmaninov's Symphony No 1 played by the BBC Philharmonic. The Puccini stars Barbara Frittoli, Jane Henschel and Katherine Broderick. Unmissable.

PROMS 38&39: ARAB-ISRAELI HARMONY
7pm, 10.15pm, Thursday 14 August
Daniel Barenboim's epoch-making West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, bringing together Arab and Israeli youngsters, tackles Brahms and Schoenberg, followed by a late-nighter offering opera director and film-maker Patrice Chéreau as narrator in The Soldier's Tale.

PROM 47: HAND OF FATE
7.30pm, Thursday 21 August
Janacek's short Osud (Fate), an opera about an opera about a single mother, never gets done in the opera house. Amanda Roocroft is Mila, Jiří Bělohlávek conducts.

PROM 49: YOUTHFUL DYNAMISM
6.30pm, Sunday 23 August
The dynamic Antonio Pappano is sure to light the fires of the talented youngsters of the National Youth Orchestra in a typically challenging programme of Varèse, Copland and Rachmaninov.

PROM 59: FINNISH FIREWORKS
7.30pm, Saturday 30 August
Magnus Lindberg's scores are reliably visceral and thrilling. His new Seht die Sonne, taking its title from Schoenberg's massive Gurrelieder, is heard here alongside fellow-Finn Sibelius and Rachmaninov.

PROM 61: RAISE THE DEAD
8pm, Sunday 31 August
The Crouch End Festival Chorus is probably the best amateur shout in town and the four soloists in Verdi's Requiem are world-class. Jiří Bělohlávek conducts. Cancel the holiday.

PROM 63: LATE-NIGHT RAGAS
10pm, Monday 1 September
Nishat Khan's father, Imrat Khan, played the first sitar music at the Proms in 1971. Nishat plays spiritual night-time ragas alongside the devotional Cinq Rechants of Messiaen.

PROM 70: SIX HOURS OF MESSIAEN
4pm, Sunday 7 September
By this stage of the season if you're not converted to Messiaen there's no hope. But this six-hour long Prom of his rarely heard, mammoth opera Saint Francis of Assisi will be a highlight, with the Netherlands Opera conducted by Ingo Metzmacher.

PROM 71: CHICAGO
7.30pm, Monday 8 September
Not the musical but a new piece for the city's crack band by Mark-Anthony Turnage, always a treat, followed by Bernard Haitink conducting Mahler's hardcore Sixth with a rod of iron.

TEN MORE TO TRY
Prom 6 (21 July): Saint-Saëns's organ symphony.
Prom 9 (23 July): bracing Brahms from Lars Vogt.
Prom 13 (27 Jul): family friendly Doctor Who Prom.
Prom 14 (27 July): Messiaen's massive Transfiguration.
Prom 18 (31 July): Glyndebourne's L'Incoronazione di Poppea.
Prom 27 (6 August): star violinist Carolin Widmann.
Prom 37 (13 August): Venezuelan star conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
Prom 50 (24 August): Bach on the organ.
Prom 65 (3 September): Simon rattles Shostakovich.
Prom 73 (10 September): Holst's ever popular Planets suite.

 

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