From the Royal College of Music to the BBC Proms: RCM musicians at the 2025 festival
Friday 16 May 2025
The BBC Proms have recently unveiled their 2025 season, which once again showcases the excellence of Royal College of Music (RCM) students, alumni and professors, who will perform at the world’s biggest classical music festival.
Soprano and RCM alumna Louise Alder takes centre stage to perform at the prestigious Last Night of the Proms, leading the UK's biggest classical music celebration. Just weeks earlier, she stars as the Countess in Glyndebourne’s new production of Mozart’s mischievous Le nozze di Figaro – performed both at the Glyndebourne Festival and the BBC Proms – alongside fellow alumnus Huw Montague Rendall as Count Almavira.
The Proms season opens with the world premiere of The Elements, written especially for the occasion by RCM composition professor and Master of the King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen. Also at the First Night, alumnus Gerald Finley performs in Vaughan Williams’ oratorio Sancta civitas, while in August alumna Hannah Kendall’s Weroon Weroon receives its UK premiere by Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto for whom it was written.
Alumnus Nicholas McCarthy, the world’s only professional one-handed concert pianist, makes his Proms debut with Ravel’s jazz-infused Concerto for the Left Hand with Mark Wigglesworth and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Meanwhile, John Wilson returns to the Proms with a dazzling programme of orchestral showpieces from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe to works by Bernstein and Strauss, while violinist and director Zoë Beyers leads the Britten Sinfonia at the Bristol Beacon in a compelling programme of Arvo Pärt, Sibelius, Gavin Higgins and Mozart.
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RCM singers appear throughout the season, including Elizabeth Watts and Laurence Kilsby in Bliss’ The Beatitudes, Jennifer Johnston in Mahler’s cantata Das klagende Lied, Claudia Huckle in Delius’s epic A Mass of Life with Sir Mark Elder and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Hugh Cutting in Handel’s oratorio Alexander’s Feast.
Professors at the Royal College of Music, performers at the height of their careers, also play key roles this season. Visiting Professors of Vocal Studies Brindley Sherratt and Nicky Spence both perform in Shostakovich’s operatic tragedy The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, alongside alumna Ava Dodd. Flute professor Adam Walker joins a starry group including guitarist Sean Shibe in a celebration of anniversary composer Boulez’s Seminal Le Marteau sans maître.
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RCM Junior Department students take the spotlight with the National Youth Orchestra’s two Proms this season, exploring intergalactic soundscapes from Holst and John Williams to Pulitzer prize-winner, Caroline Shaw. Meanwhile, RCM alumni and professors perform as orchestral musicians with the world’s leading ensembles, many of which will grace the Proms stage this season.
Discover more about studying at the Royal College of Music, the Global No.1 institution for Music and Performing Arts, where musicians are nurtured and equipped with the skills, experience and support to thrive as performers, conductors and composers on the global stage.
First image: Louise Alder (photo by Will Alder), John Wilson (photo by Astrid Ackermann) and Hannah Kendall
