Original version

BBC World Service Online

BBC Proms 2010

Highlights from the 2010 season of BBC Proms, the UK's greatest classical music festival.

The 2010 BBC Proms season is now over but you can still enjoy World Service Proms broadcasts by following the links below.

If you have any comments about World Service Proms broadcasts, please email us on: world.class@bbc.co.uk

BBC Proms 2010: 07/08/2010

Music

07/08/2010

BBC Proms on the World Service

BBC World Service - BBC Proms 2010, 07/08/2010

Stephen Sondheim - a celebration of the greatest living musical composer and lyricist

Stephen Sondheim at 80 - a celebration of the greatest living musical composer and lyricist: 07-08 August

We are celebrating the birthday of one of the greatest living composers and lyricists of musical theatre in today’s concert from the 2010 BBC Proms. 

Stephen Sondheim is 80 this year and over his long and distinguished career, he has continued to break the mould of the genre. During his early life he was tutored by the American musical theatre greats - having been mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II, he worked with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story and Julie Styne on Gypsy. 

Describing himself as a ‘playwright in song’, he went on to revolutionize musical theatre, creating original, witty and often challenging shows. 

His award winning musicals span from the demented demon barber of Fleet St, Sweeney Todd, married life in 1970s New York, Company, to Sunday in the Park with George based on the pointillist paintings of the 19th Century French artist Georges Seurat.  

World Service broadcast programme
Sondheim: Fanfare, Invocation and Instructions - The Frogs
Sondheim: Sunday in the Park with George
Sondheim: Agony – Into the Woods
Sondheim: Send in the Clowns – A Little Night Music
Sondheim: Epiphany – Sweeney Todd
Sondheim: A Little Priest – Sweeney Todd
Sondheim: Our Time – Merrily We Roll Along
Sondheim: Being Alive – Company
Sondheim: Side by Side by Side –Company 

Performers
Vocalist: Bryn Terfel
Vocalist: Maria Friedman
Vocalist: Simon Russell Beale
Vocalist: Judi Dench
Vocalist: Julian Ovenden
Vocalist: Caroline O’Connor
Vocalist: Daniel Evans
Vocalist: Jenna Russell

Proms Sondheim Ensemble
Singers from the BBC Performing Arts Fund
BBC Concert Orchestra 
David Charles Abell, conductor 

Introduced by the BBC's Louise Fryer and writer and broadcaster Edward Seckerson.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

BBC Proms 2010

07/08/2010

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service