As the shortened Proms season returns to the Royal Albert Hall without an audience, its presenters share their thoughts on what the music will mean to a subdued nation

Katie Derham
The BBC Proms is always something of a musical miracle. And this year’s season has been an outstanding celebration of what is possible in these strange times. We’ve had six weeks enjoying the best of the best – a fantasy Proms if you like, reliving standout moments from seasons gone by. Now, for two whole weeks, live music is returning to the Royal Albert Hall. With carefully chosen repertoire, and with smaller and socially distanced ensembles cleverly using the space, some of the finest musicians in the world will again be delivering what the Proms does best – bringing the best live music to the biggest possible TV and radio audiences. 

The line-up is a mouth-watering selection of Proms favourites. I can’t wait to hear two of the finest young violinists in the world, Nicola Benedetti and Alina Ibragimova, joining forces for an evening of double violin concertos with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Sir Simon Rattle will be unmissable, at the helm of the London Symphony Orchestra conducting his seventy-fifth Prom in a programme of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and a new work by Thomas Adès, especially as he’s joined by the incomparable Mitsuko Uchida playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Conductor Jules Buckley is becoming something of a Proms fixture with his inventive, multi-genre collaborations and he’s teaming up with another musician who always surprises and excites, the sitar player, Anoushka Shankar.