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The Best Episodes of BBC Proms

Every episode of BBC Proms ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of BBC Proms!

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The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    BBC Proms Season 79 Episode 9 - Anoushka Shankar at the Proms
    9.0/10(2 votes)

    #1 - Anoushka Shankar at the Proms

    S79:E9

    Anita Rani introduces a concert that sees sitar superstar Anoushka Shankar join forces with conductor Robert Ames and London Contemporary Orchestra to perform a newly orchestrated version of her Chapters trilogy. Each Chapter of her three albums is inspired by one of the three countries she has called home, and the trilogy sonically carries the listener from afternoon, to night, to the dawn of a new day.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. BBC Proms Season 79 Episode 24 - St. Vincent at the Proms
    9.0/10(2 votes)

    #2 - St. Vincent at the Proms

    S79:E24

    The multiple Grammy Award-winning singer joins a full orchestra for this one-off gig at the Royal Albert Hall, with incredible new arrangements of some of her most-loved songs. St. Vincent is musician Annie Clark, whose artistry is in full hypnotic flow in this one-off spectacular. Conductor and arranger Jules Buckley brings the full might of his 60-strong orchestra to revel in other-wordly new arrangements of songs from seven St Vincent albums. Rachel Eckroth co-arranges and plays keyboards amongst the ensemble. A night of wonder and inimitable artistry which had the audience spellbound.

    Director:Marcus Viner
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 15 - Prom 34: Mindful Mix Prom
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #3 - Prom 34: Mindful Mix Prom

    S77:E15

    Relax into a late-night musical meditation with Grammy-nominated vocal group VOCES8 and a playlist that drifts from the Renaissance to Radiohead.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. BBC Proms Season 79 Episode 10 - Aurora Orchestra Plays Shostakovich's Fifth
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #4 - Aurora Orchestra Plays Shostakovich's Fifth

    S79:E10

    Explore this 20th-century masterpiece from the inside out as Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra return to the Proms with a signature memorised performance marking the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death. Actors join the orchestra in this immersive performance, bringing to life a symphony born in the shadows of Stalinist Russia, but which would emerge as a powerful statement of artistic defiance.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. BBC Proms Season 79 Episode 12 - Great British Classics at the Proms
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #5 - Great British Classics at the Proms

    S79:E12

    A musical celebration of landscapes and seascapes from the Royal Albert Hall performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. From the soaring flight of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, Elgar’s beloved Enigma Variations featuring Nimrod, Britten’s stormy Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, and Walton’s Crown Imperial Coronation March, to lesser known gems from some of Britain’s most illustrious composers, this is musical Britain at its very best. Clive Myrie presents and is joined by special guests Alison Balson and Gyles Brandreth.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. BBC Proms Season 79 Episode 17 - The Planets and Star Wars at the Proms
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #6 - The Planets and Star Wars at the Proms

    S79:E17

    A galaxy of sound from Britain’s brightest young musicians. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and conductor Dalia Stasevska blast off on a celestial musical journey featuring Holst’s The Planets and John Williams’s Star Wars. Presented by actor, comedian and amateur violinist Nick Mohammed, who himself conducted in his university orchestra, this is a night of music that’s truly out of this world.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of BBC Proms

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  7. BBC Proms Season 80 Episode 6 - Bolero at the Proms
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #7 - Bolero at the Proms

    S80:E6

    The Spanish National Orchestra makes its Proms debut with a set of heat-soaked musical postcards that includes Ravel’s hypnotic Boléro and Rodrigo’s much-loved Concierto de Aranjuez with guitar phenomenon Rafael Aguirre as soloist

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. BBC Proms Season 78 Episode 12 - Prom 18: Sam Smith
    7.5/10(2 votes)

    #8 - Prom 18: Sam Smith

    S78:E12

    For their only UK appearance of 2024, Sam Smith joins the BBC Concert Orchestra for a retrospective look at their seminal debut solo album In the Lonely Hour, released 10 years ago and featuring tracks such as ‘Stay With Me’ and ‘Lay Me Down’.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. BBC Proms Season 72 Episode 1 - First Night of the Proms
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #9 - First Night of the Proms

    S72:E1

    An all-British concert launches the 2018 season. Vaughan Williams atmospheric Whitman settings and Holst’s ever-popular 1918 suite The Planets sit alongside a new collaboration by Anna Meredith and 59 Productions.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. BBC Proms Season 72 Episode 7 - Paul Lewis plays Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #10 - Paul Lewis plays Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto

    S72:E7

    A concert of darkness and light opens with the world premiere of Tansy Davies’s 9/11-inspired What Did We See? and closes with Brahms’s sunny Second Symphony. Paul Lewis joins Ben Gernon and the BBC Philharmonic for Beethoven’s 'Emperor' Concerto.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. BBC Proms Season 72 Episode 13 - New York: Sound of a City
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #11 - New York: Sound of a City

    S72:E13

    Celebrating the music of a modern New York, the Heritage Orchestra and conductor Jules Buckley present the sound of NYC. With guest artists drawn from across the Big Apple, expect anything from pagan-gospel and disco-punk to feminist rap or DIY indie.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. BBC Proms Season 72 Episode 17 - Iván Fischer & Budapest Festival Orchestra (II)
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #12 - Iván Fischer & Budapest Festival Orchestra (II)

    S72:E17

    Dance to the Gypsy rhythms of Hungarian folk music in works by Liszt and Sarasate, while Brahms’s dramatic First Symphony, with its transcendent finale, is at the heart of this second concert by Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 12 - Prom 27: NYOGB plays Elfman, Gershwin and Ravel
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #13 - Prom 27: NYOGB plays Elfman, Gershwin and Ravel

    S76:E12

    ‘I think and feel in sounds,’ said Maurice Ravel. So, when he wrote his ballet Daphnis and Chloe, he created a sumptuous musical panorama in which you can hear every drop of dew, every flurry of birdsong and every ray of glittering light. Sounds thrilling? Now hear it performed by the ‘world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers’ – playing with an energy and joy that make even the Royal Albert Hall feel a bit on the small side. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s annual Prom is always a highlight of the season, and tonight its 150-plus players are working on a cinematic scale: Simone Dinnerstein performs Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and there’s a spectacular, specially commissioned opener from Hollywood legend Danny Elfman.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 13 - Prom 36: Marin Alsop conducts the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #14 - Prom 36: Marin Alsop conducts the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

    S76:E13

    Viennese orchestral playing is a byword for excellence, rooted in generations of tradition. But under its distinguished (and adventurous) American Music Director Marin Alsop, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra takes that tradition as a starting point to look outwards – to explore. Bartók’s bloodcurdling ballet suite prepares the way for Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto: energising, unsentimental brilliance, brought to life by former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Benjamin Grosvenor. And then, two very different facets of the Central European tradition: the windswept drama and dancing Bohemian melodies of Dvořák’s magnificent Seventh Symphony, and the UK premiere of Heliosis – written specially for Alsop and the Vienna RSO by a young Viennese composer with a flair for drama.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 14 - Prom 47: Aretha Franklin – Queen of Soul
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #15 - Prom 47: Aretha Franklin – Queen of Soul

    S76:E14

    In her 80th-anniversary year – and 50 years since the release of her album Young, Gifted and Black – the Proms pays tribute to the ‘Queen of Soul’, Aretha Franklin. A singer, songwriter, pianist and one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, whose song ‘Respect’ became an anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement, Franklin is remembered in a unique Prom featuring a collection of her greatest hits with a dynamic orchestral backing. Jules Buckley conducts his newly formed ensemble in its Proms debut, joined by American singer-songwriter and Quincy Jones protégée Sheléa.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 15 - Prom 4: Cynthia Erivo – Legendary Voices
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #16 - Prom 4: Cynthia Erivo – Legendary Voices

    S76:E15

    Cynthia Erivo is a creative phenomenon: a London-born, Tony, Grammy and Emmy award-winning actress, singer, songwriter and producer, whose career has taken her from her childhood in South London to the West End and Broadway, and whose recordings have also thrilled audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Tonight, backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra she salutes the legendary female voices that have shown her the way: artists such as Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, Billie Holiday and Gladys Knight. ‘I wanted to pay homage to them,’ she says. ‘Women who have influenced my sound, the music I’ve listened to, and the way I tell my story.’

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 16 - Prom 49: Rattle conducts Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #17 - Prom 49: Rattle conducts Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony

    S76:E16

    The end has come, and in the silence after the Last Trumpet, a solitary bird is the only sound heard on Earth. The ambition of Gustav Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony staggers the imagination – an emotional odyssey on a cosmic scale that embraces tenderness, rage, dark humour and – yes – the end of the world itself. Sir Simon Rattle was still a teenager when he conducted his first performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony, and it’s been a personal touchstone at every stage of his career. Now, as he prepares to step down as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, he pairs it with a short (but very personal) tribute from the late Harrison Birtwistle, one of Britain’s most distinguished recent composers.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. BBC Proms Season 76 Episode 17 - Prom 54: Earth Prom with Chris Packham
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #18 - Prom 54: Earth Prom with Chris Packham

    S76:E17

    Over a century of public service broadcasting, the BBC has forged a global reputation for its coverage of the planet we call home – from the oceans and mountains to rivers, glaciers, deserts and the infinite wonders of life on Earth itself. Tonight, the Proms hosts a stunning audio-visual celebration of the BBC’s world-famous Natural History Unit, from David Attenborough’s pioneering early adventures through to the landmark series of the 21st century. Expect breath-taking images, natural sounds, spoken words and music by composers including Hans Zimmer and George Fenton, performed live in the spectacular surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall by Ben Palmer and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 1 - First Night of the Proms
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #19 - First Night of the Proms

    S77:E1

    Clive Myrie presents live from the Royal Albert Hall as the annual music festival is launched with Sibelius, Grieg, Britten and a world premiere from Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 2 - Prom 4: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #20 - Prom 4: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

    S77:E2

    Finnish violinist and conductor Pekka Kuusisto leads The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in a concert of works by Beethoven, Vivaldi and Andrea Tarrodi.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 3 - Prom 7: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #21 - Prom 7: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

    S77:E3

    The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and their conductor laureate, Tadaaki Otaka, perform perhaps the most famous classical symphony ever written, Beethoven’s Fifth.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 4 - Prom 12: Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #22 - Prom 12: Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony

    S77:E4

    The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and new Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for the first of their two Proms together this season.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 5 - Prom 18: Lata Mangeshkar: Bollywood Legend
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #23 - Prom 18: Lata Mangeshkar: Bollywood Legend

    S77:E5

    Celebrating the musical legacy of Bollywood, the Proms pays tribute to Lata Mangeshkar, the voice behind the hit songs that defined Indian cinema’s greatest films.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 7 - Prom 23: NYO Jazz (USA) with Dee Dee Bridgewater
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #24 - Prom 23: NYO Jazz (USA) with Dee Dee Bridgewater

    S77:E7

    Grammy award-winning jazz legend Dee Dee Bridgewater joins trumpeter Sean Jones and Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Jazz Orchestra, comprising outstanding young musicians from across the USA, as they make their BBC Proms debut.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. BBC Proms Season 77 Episode 10 - Prom 24: Felix Klieser plays Mozart
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #25 - Prom 24: Felix Klieser plays Mozart

    S77:E10

    The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor Kirill Karabits present Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 alongside a work by Karabits’s own father. Horn virtuoso Felix Klieser makes his Proms debut with Mozart’s sunny Concerto No. 4.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"Anoushka Shankar at the Proms" is the best rated episode of "BBC Proms". It scored 9/10 based on 2 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 8/15/2025. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "St. Vincent at the Proms".