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By order of the Traitors, you’re invited to a spine-tingling celebration of musical treachery! Claudia Winkleman is our host as we explore this worldwide television phenomenon, with its tense and haunting sound-world. From epic classical orchestral favourites to opera excerpts with betrayal at their heart, this unique Prom also features melodramatic chart tracks heard on The Traitors – with a gothic, symphonic twist.

A melody heard in a dream, a tribute to a dying genius, a vision of cosmic beauty: Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 is the composer’s musical memorial to Richard Wagner. It’s a homage that elevated the Austrian composer to new heights, a musical walk around a magnificent cathedral. A contemporary tribute opens tonight’s Prom: Ryan Wigglesworth’s for Laura, after Bach, dedicated to the memory of former BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Leader Laura Samuel and inspired by her recording of a Bach Partita, played at her funeral. Mozart’s stormy Piano Concerto No. 20 completes the programme, with Georgian pianist and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Mariam Batsashvili as the soloist.

Harrison Birtwistle’s monumental Earth Dances returns to the Proms for the first time this century. This contemporary orchestral masterpiece boasts tectonic shifts that surge and fissure with inexorable, elemental force. Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra pair it with the mould-breaking orchestral pinnacle of another age. Grander than anything that came before, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the ‘Eroica’, ushers in Romanticism, revolutionising both the form itself and expectations of what a symphony can – and should – be.

The in-demand conductor Karina Canellakis returns after making her Edinburgh International Festival debut in the 2023 Closing Concert. She leads this monumental programme with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the BBC SSO, characterised by thrilling sounds and ideas of love, divine or human.

The ultimate Romantic symphony, Rachmaninov’s Second has it all: heart-on-sleeve emotions, endless melodies, a slow-movement whose two rival themes eventually find themselves locked in a passionate embrace and a radiant finale. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor Designate Delyana Lazarova are joined by former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and ‘unrivalled musician’ Anastasia Kobekina for Shostakovich’s supremely demanding Cello Concerto No. 1. The Prom opens with dawn breaking on a spring morning in Lili Boulanger’s vivid tone-poem D’un matin de printemps.

Solemn ritual and holiday sunshine collide in a concert by Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The incense-scented processional splendour of Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis and Canzone a tre core, transcribed with contemporary clarity by Bruno Maderna, frame Stravinsky’s last major work – the ‘pocket-requiem’ he knew he was ‘writing for himself’. Step out of church and into the pastoral warmth of Brahms’s happiest symphony, written on the slopes of the Austrian Alps: ‘all blue sky, babbling streams, sunshine and cool green shade'.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s career took him from the twilight of Imperial Russia to the cocktails and swimming pools of Beverly Hills. Yet something timeless echoes throughout everything that he composed: a questioning, passionate spirit that encompassed every aspect of his life and times, expressed in melodies that have spoken to millions. In this, the BBC SSO’s 90th anniversary season, we’ll be playing all three of his symphonies, and more.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s career took him from the twilight of Imperial Russia to the cocktails and swimming pools of Beverly Hills. Yet something timeless echoes throughout everything that he composed: a questioning, passionate spirit that encompassed every aspect of his life and times, expressed in melodies that have spoken to millions.

Delight in this uplifting evening of expressive choral and orchestral music – the BBC SSO’s latest collaboration with Sir James MacMillan and his award-winning community music festival, The Cumnock Tryst. MacMillan and Eamonn Dougan conduct music inspired by themes of devotion, reflection and beauty. Praised as penning “dreamy vocal lines that overlap and intensify to stunning effect” (Wall Street Journal), American composer Taylor Scott Davis’s Magnificat takes flight with the stirring voices of the Cumnock Tryst Festival Chorus.

Mozart sets the stage with energy, elegance, and drama—an ideal prelude to an evening of compelling musical storytelling. Guest conductor Ludovic Morlot—who captivated audiences when he stepped in at short notice with the BBC SSO in 2024—leads a journey that culminates in the soaring melodies of Sibelius’s epic Second Symphony.