Last night in London, at the Royal Albert Hall, the 2019 season of the BBC Proms began its new season, with The First Night of the Proms, with pretty much all its usual elements in place, the key primary element being the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO). Along for the ride was the BBC Symphony Chorus, the BBC Singers, four vocal soloists, and one organist. OK, you say, more of 3CM's usual hoity-toity high-cultural drivel that virtually no one else on DK cares about. So why more of it now?
The reason has to do with the one so-far-unmentioned person in the proceedings, namely the conductor. Normally, the chief conductor of the BBC SO conducts the First Night of The Proms, understandably enough. The current chief conductor of the BBC SO is the Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo. But if you clicked through the BBC Proms page link, as well as Oramo's own homepage just now, you'll see that the picture on the BBC Proms page for Prom 1 is not that of a Finnish gentleman, to state the very obvious. The picture is, instead, of the American conductor Karina Canellakis (earlier diaried about here), who, with last night's concert, as BBC correspondent Mark Savage noted in this BBC News article:
"Karina Canellakis has made history, as the first woman to conduct the First Night of the BBC Proms."
So there you have it, another welcome breaking of the glass ceiling in classical music, if admittedly very UK-focused (well, duh). At least here, the BBC Proms don't have arrogant purity trolls who ruin everything they touch and are about to do so again next November, to deal with in their choice of a conductor for the First Night (or any night) of the Proms.
3CM the loser should make clear at the outset that, IMHO, there is relatively little element of PC involved in choosing KC to helm The First Night. When it comes to orchestras and conductors, like with people in general, there's good chemistry between a given orchestra and a given conductor, or there isn't. Canellakis has led the BBC SO twice so far at the Proms:
(1) First in 2017, her debut with the orchestra, with a sample video here.
(2) She returned to the Proms in 2018, sample audio here
She has conducted several concerts with the BBC SO in London at the Barbican Centre and at the Aldeburgh Festival earlier this year. That KC has guest-conducted with the BBC SO already twice this past season is one sign of good chemistry between the two of them.
So the BBC SO and the Proms management clearly must feel sufficiently confident in their working relationship with KC to entrust her with The First Night, a very high-profile gig that is broadcast not only on the radio, but on national TV. You can't see the videos in the USA, as the BBC restricts the full video presentation archive to UK residents only (very understandably). However, the BBC does post video snippets on their Twitter feed, where you can scroll down it for video clips from this year's First Night. You can also hear, for the next 4 weeks, the audio relay from the BBC's iPlayer here, where admittedly the picture of KC isn't quite the most flattering of her.
One spoiler-alert in reverse on the audio relay: the co-presenters, Petroc Trelawny and Georgia Mann, never mention at any point that KC is the first woman to conduct the First Night. During the live relay, Georgia Mann made a bee-line backstage to chat with KC, where here is the slightly fuller context of a quip by KC noted in Savage’s BBC article:
GM: “No stranger to the Proms, you played here first as a violinist, you’ve conducted Proms here before, but the First Night must feel pretty special.”
KC: “This is amazing. I'm honored to be here - and very sweaty, and straight off stage..."
Well, there we are. BTW, SymphonyCast will be presenting the First Night as the first in their annual set of BBC Proms that they present via NPR stations, starting the week of July 29.
With that, you can either discuss the topic on hand (which I doubt that anyone here cares to do, unless someone on DK besides me actually heard the relay yesterday), or observe the standard SNLC protocol, where the same principles may apply….