Last Night of the Proms will be broadcast live on September 13, 1 p.m., and rebroadcast at 7 p.m. CT View schedule Three prerecorded BBC Proms concerts will be broadcast August 23, 30, and September 6 at 1 pm CT. View schedule MPR's classical music service will feature recorded performances from the BBC Proms for a 30-day period beginning August 13. BBC Proms highlights will be heard during the 10 am and 10 pm hours CT. View schedule Get a 360° view of the Royal Albert Hall, as well as many other London sites. View More Information BBC Proms Homepage Read "History of the BBC Proms" About Last Night of the Proms Press Release

BBC Proms Festival Comes to Public Radio
August 13 - September 13, 2003

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Minnesota Public Radio and BBC Worldwide have joined forces to bring the BBC Proms, the world's largest music festival, to the U.S. radio audience. The BBC Proms, now in its 109th season, includes more than 70 concerts every summer, featuring an ever-widening range of symphonic and operatic music.

The BBC Proms (short for "Promenade") welcomes leading international performers while showcasing the best of the British music scene, including the BBC's own orchestras and choirs. Although its scope has increased enormously since 1895, the original concept remains largely unaltered: to present the widest possible range of music, performed to the highest standards, to large audiences.

The U.S. broadcasts will feature an outstanding mix of classical favorites as well as several premieres, performed by the world's great orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic. Conductors Valery Gergiev, Bobby McFerrin, Simon Rattle and Christoph Eschenbach, among many others, will perform with soloists including Joshua Bell, Leila Josefowicz and Isabelle van Keulen.

Tom Crann is a weekday host on Minnesota Public Radio's national Classical 24 service. He has worked in public radio since 1987, with stops at stations in St. Louis; Evansville, Indiana; Buffalo; and Los Angeles. He was a founding voice of Classical 24 when it first went on the air in December 1995. In May 1999, he became the first American "presenter" with a daily program on national radio in Ireland. He was one of the original voices of Lyric FM when RTÉ (Ireland's national broadcaster) put that country's first full-time classical music and arts station on the air. C24 welcomed Crann back on the air in 2002. He hosted the broadcast of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland's New York debut at Lincoln Center for RTÉ last Spring.