Proms alert!

[MDL]

For those of you who weren't paying attention (that's me) or are just a bit dim (ditto), the booking system has been changed. There is no advance period where you can pre-book tickets before the box office opens. Tickets are on sale now and a few concerts have already sold out.

From the website:

This year sees the introduction of a simpler, faster and fairer booking system for the BBC Proms. Tickets will go on sale online, by telephone and in person on Tuesday 4 May at 8.00am and your ticket purchases will be confirmed immediately. Tickets may also be requested by post.

The previous two-stage Advance and General booking system, together with the postal booking form and old online request system, has been discontinued.

[CRCulver]

In most classical forums I frequent, people seem to be disappointed with this year's programme. It's a bit too safe. I can't believe they replaced Norgard's brilliant new piano concerto Star-Barcarole with a Turnage piece. Still, at least the Danish RSO conducted by Dausgaard are doing Langgaard's Music of the Spheres. That's a once in a lifetime event for English concertgoers.

[MDL]

In most classical forums I frequent, people seem to be disappointed with this year's programme. It's a bit too safe. I can't believe they replaced Norgard's brilliant new piano concerto Star-Barcarole with a Turnage piece. Still, at least the Danish RSO conducted by Dausgaard are doing Langgaard's Music of the Spheres. That's a once in a lifetime event for English concertgoers.

I booked my tickets for that very concert this morning. I love Music of the Spheres. It's going to be a pretty long concert, running from 7 to gone 10; I hope the Danes have the energy to do Sibelius 5 justice at the end of the evening. They could have dumped the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and one interval, and the concert would still have been a perfectly respectable two hours in length. I get arse ache in those Royal Albert Hall seats! 

There appear to be quite a few long concerts this season; more than normal, perhaps.

Edit: According to the website, it's the Danish National Symphony Orchestra that is playing. Is that a different band to the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra or a new name for it, or has somebody at the Beeb made a boob?

[Superhorn]

    I wish we had something like the Proms in New York every Summer, with possibly the New York Philharmonic and great orchestras visiting from all over the US,Europe and elsewhere.  Do you think it would be possible to start something like this in the US?

[knight66]

So far I am booked for 23, Elgar and 24, Mahler 3 then 61, Humperdinck and 62, Bruckner 9 Mahler songs and Hindermith , but I hope to pick up some other concerts along the way.

Mike

[MDL]

    I wish we had something like the Proms in New York every Summer, with possibly the New York Philharmonic and great orchestras visiting from all over the US,Europe and elsewhere.  Do you think it would be possible to start something like this in the US?

The Proms season has the might of the licence-fee-funded BBC behind it (although I'm hazy about the details of how the Proms are actually funded) and a lot of the concerts are played by the BBC's own bands. Guest orchestras tend to play two concerts each. I can't imagine how the Proms would function without the BBC's support, at least not in its current form, and therefore cannot imagine how it could be copied anywhere else.