Proms 2026 Copland and Stravinsky

Two 20th-century ballets lie at the heart of this colourful concert by Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Puppets come to life at a bustling Shrovetide Fair in Stravinsky’s Petrushka – a giddy musical collage of folk tunes and modernist invention – while cowboy songs swirl through the score of Copland’s Billy the Kid: a musical portrait of the infamous outlaw. Dedicatee Anthony McGill is the soloist in a new Clarinet Concerto, ‘If love will not swing wide the gates’, by Portland-based composer and songwriter Gabriel Kahane. A collaborator of Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainright, Kahane blends classical forms with folk-pop influences in his melodic, anthemic writing.

Anthony McGill © Martin Romero