Fantasia Orchestra To Make BBC Proms Debut This Summer

Fantasia Orchestra make their BBC Proms debut this year, with two proms at the Royal Albert Hall in August, with an exciting and eclectic repertoire of folk songs, dances, prayers and incantations, including pop, jazz and folk classics, alongside classical favourites.

Featuring soloists, and long-time Fantasia collaborators, Sheku and Braimah Kanneh-Mason and Plínio Fernandes, BBC Prom 20 will be recorded for BBC 4, and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 11am on Sunday 4 August. BBC Prom 22 will take place on Monday 5 August at 11.15am, presented by another Fantasia friend and collaborator Jess Gillam – this will be a relaxed Prom with BSL interpreter and audio description.

Programme

Trad. Serbian arr. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Tom Fetherstonhaugh & Harry Baker Adje Jano

Trad. arr. Simon Parkin & Harry Baker Scarborough Fair

Johannes Brahms arr. Harry Baker Hungarian Dances (1, 2, 5)

Béla Bartók Romanian Folk Dances

Burt Bacharach/Hal David, arr. Harry Baker & Sheku Kanneh-Mason I Say a Little Prayer

Bob Marley arr. Kanneh-Masons & Harry Baker Redemption Song

Laura Mvula, arr. Harry Baker Sing to the Moon

Antonín Dvořák arr. Harry Baker Song to the Moon

Antônio Jobim, arr. Sergio Assad & Harry Baker The Girl from Ipanema

Astor Piazzolla, arr. Sergio Assad & Harry Baker Libertango

Stevie Wonder, arr. Harry Baker I wish

Bernard Edwards/Nile Rodgers, arr. Harry Baker & Sheku Kanneh-Mason Good Times

On 25 April, Fantasia musicians were invited to give an exclusive performance at the 2024 BBC Proms Press Launch, alongside arranger and pianist Harry Baker, and soloists Braimah Kanneh-Mason and Plinio Fernandes. They also performed for a BBC Tik-Tok exclusive for the BBC Proms marketing team. 

Ahead of the Proms, Fantasia and the soloists will perform the same repertoire at Guiting Festival in the Cotswolds on 26 July and then Ryedale Festival in Yorkshire on 27 July.

Tom Fetherstonhaugh said, “We're absolutely over the moon to be making our debut at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the world's greatest classical music festival, with a programme that spans centuries, styles and genres. We'll be sharing the stage with three long-standing friends and collaborators, who join us for a wide range of musical gems, from Brahms and Bartok to Nile Rogers and Stevie Wonder.”

Fantasia Orchestra was founded in 2016 by conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh and is home to the best of young British classical music talent today. It has recently collaborated with other eminent soloists including Alim Beisembayev, Thomas Gould, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Vadym Kholodenko, Jennifer Pike, Laura van der Heijden, and Steven Osborne. The connections in the orchestra were forged at the Royal Academy of Music, where Tom and many of the other musicians and soloists met and studied together from 2011 onwards.

Hailed as a ‘spark to watch' by BBC Radio 3, 26-year-old Tom Fetherstonhaugh is the Assistant Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of Fantasia Orchestra. Represented by Rayfield Allied, Tom has conducted performances with leading soloists and orchestras from across the world, including the Brandenburger Symphoniker (Germany), Britten Sinfonia (England), Lindenbaum Orchestra (South Korea) and Ulster Orchestra (Northern Ireland). Deemed ‘a model of precision and control from start to finish' (Belfast NewsLetter), he is one of the UK's most dynamic young conductors.

As previously announced, Fantasia will also be making its debut at the Northern Aldborough Festival  on Thursday 13 June at St Andrew's Church, Aldborough, with pianist Alim Beisembayev, and will open the Proms at St Jude's festival on Saturday 22 June, with An American Celebration with pianist Martin James Bartlett. Tickets for both are on sale now. 

Recent Fantasia Orchestra highlights include an April 2024 concert at St Gabriel's Church Pimlico with Jess Gillam; their 2023 debut at The Newbury Spring Festival; a London performance of Dobrinka Tabakova's Cello Concerto with soloist Laura van der Heijden; and a co-commission with the London Mozart Players of a new arrangement of Ernest Bloch's Schelomo, premiered in the UK by Fantasia with soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

Education is central to the ethos of Fantasia and 2020 saw the launch of its partnership with the music education charity the DaCapo Music Foundation. Together, they've delivered initiatives including a series of school workshops entitled ‘Take Note', bringing music-making to primary schools in London with little or no music provision – these sessions repeatedly receive fantastic feedback from children and teachers alike. They've also created a new resource for the primary classroom: DaCapo Online is a comprehensive, ambitious and inclusive music curriculum that features Fantasia musicians at every stage.

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