The largest BBC Proms outside of London: Bristol Beacon hosts the BBC Proms!
The BBC Proms was established in 1895 by founder-conductor Henry Wood with an aim to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains the aim today. The concerts offer something for everyone over an eight-week period, with 90 concerts – 73 at the Royal Albert Hall and 17 at venues across the UK, and it’s coming to bristol.
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00:00This is the BBC Proms coming out of the Royal Albert Hall. We've been working with the BBC
00:08for a long time to bring the BBC Proms to Bristol as a residency and there's six different
00:14proms going on over the bank holiday weekend and they're really varied, they're very inclusive
00:20and accessible, they're very welcoming but it is the proms experience in Bristol Beacon.
00:25Okay so we are in the Beacon Hall at Bristol Beacon, to me one of the greatest concert
00:30halls in the country. So Bristol Beacon obviously used to be called the Colston Hall and it
00:34is now Bristol Beacon and even the name is steeped in inclusivity, so tell me how is
00:41BBC Proms going to embody this? So I think the BBC Proms will be embodying this in terms
00:47of their residency here, it's going to be quite special so one of the things we're doing
00:51as an example is that we'll be representing the Power Orchestra and promoting Power Orchestra
00:55who will be performing on the first night of the residency. The proms experience is
01:01really when you think of proming, we're thinking about the standing in front of the stage so
01:06if you've ever seen the Royal Albert Hall proms on television, in the great big arena
01:11are people standing watching the show and it's a very accessible ticket, it's only £8
01:16plus booking fee here and the joy of proming is that you could stand right at the front,
01:22you can stand at the back, you can move around, you can sit on the floor, so it's informal
01:28but you're still really engaged with the concert. Lots of people are really talented but do
01:33not get the opportunities that others have had in the past and what I love about Bristol
01:38Beacon now is it's allowing stories from everyone to get through. So Power Orchestra is all
01:43about breaking down the barriers that disabled musicians have had in the industry. These
01:49are musicians that are absolutely professional, talented, at the top of their game but wouldn't
01:55be seen as being part of an orchestra so for the orchestra that's obviously very important.
02:00We'll also be doing a young composers workshop as well for young people and that's actually
02:05going to be focused around inclusion and how do you compose in an inclusive way so that
02:09anyone can take part in the piece that you might be writing as well so that's going to
02:13be one of the focus for us as well. But also over the next, you know, hopefully this residency
02:17is going to be carrying on year on year and we've already made a commitment that actually
02:20inclusion is going to be at the heart of it and actually going to be a real focus and
02:24a real point of celebration across the years that we do this.
02:27For the audience it's about visibility, you know, if you're not seeing yourself on a stage
02:33you don't consider that to be something that you can do and for us it's like a lot, it's
02:37a long journey, you know, we've been around since 2011, we'll be around for a lot longer
02:41and this is a part of that journey where, to be quite honest, we've broken through the
02:45glass ceiling, you know, BBC Proms is the biggest classical music festival in the world,
02:48we've never played it before and for an orchestra that's integrated like we are to be able to
02:54perform on that kind of platform is really important.