Featured artists
Christian Tetzlaff gives three Proms this season
Inviting instrumental soloists and singers to give more than one performance across the season allows audiences to hear them in different contexts and repertoire, giving greater insight into their work. It is a characteristic of recent Proms seasons that is further developed in 2011 with a greater number of artists who perform more than once.
Benjamin Grosvenor leads the line-up of featured pianists when he makes his Proms debut on the First Night playing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 (). He returns for Britten's Piano Concerto (). Dejan Lazić, another Proms debut pianist, performs his own piano arrangement of Brahms's Violin Concerto () and Liszt's Totentanz ().
Marc-André Hamelin emulates the pianistic virtuosity of Liszt – a pioneer of the solo piano recital – in a solo Late Night Prom () and returns for Rachmaninov's showpiece Paganini Variations (), while Emanuel Ax performs Brahms's two concertos on consecutive evenings devoted to the composer ( & ).
Lang Lang makes Proms history by performing at both the Royal Albert Hall and Proms in the Park as part of the Last Night celebrations. He plays Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Chopin's Grande Polonaise brillante in the Royal Albert Hall after an appearance that same evening in Hyde Park ().
German violinist Christian Tetzlaff features in three different Proms, performing Brahms's Violin Concerto (), the UK premiere of the new concerto by Sir Harrison Birtwistle () and a lunchtime recital of Mozart and Bartók at Cadogan Hall with his long-standing duo partner Lars Vogt ().
Husband-and-wife team, Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley, join forces for two concerts on the same day. In the first they introduce Thomas Larcher's Double Concerto, commissioned by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ especially for this creative partnership, and then explore the worlds of gypsy music and jazz in a Late Night Prom with pianist Julian Joseph and percussionists Paul Clarvis and Sam Walton ().
The Capuçon brothers – Renaud (violin) and Gautier (cello) – undertake major concertos on consecutive nights when they make their Proms debuts with the unusually scored double and triple concertos of Brahms and Beethoven ( & ).
Yo-Yo Ma gives a Proms Chamber Music recital () and returns for the world premiere of Graham Fitkin's new Cello Concerto in the Royal Albert Hall (), while French flautist Emmanuel Pahud performs flute concertos by Elliott Carter and Marc-André Dalbavie in the Royal Albert Hall () and then gives a Proms Chamber Music concert with pianist Eric Le Sage ().
Leading British singers are also featured. Soprano Susan Bullock shows a different side of her talent in the Comedy Prom () and returns as Wagner's Brünnhilde for the demanding Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung on the Last Night (). Mezzo-sopranos Sarah Connolly and Christine Rice and bass Matthew Rose also feature in more than one Prom.
