Prom 43 (8.09.21) - Shostakovich & Mahler

[Alison]

I don't think I'd go that far. The opportunity to see and hear the world's great orchestras is something to be cherished. There's enough dead wood at the Proms to find space for international orchestras and this one.

Point taken though not all international orchestras are great.

[gurnemanz]

Some my most rewarding and enjoyable Proms evenings have been with foreign orchestras. Eg from memory - LA Phil in the 60s, Gewandhaus 70s. Minnesota/Vänsä 10 years ago and most recently Dresden Staatskspelle. In the latter two cases it was interesting to get to chat to a couple of orchestra members in the Queens Arms after the concert.

[bluestateprommer]

Interesting article from Toby Deller at the Classical Music UK site as to how the Proms Festival Orchestra was assembled:

https://www.classical-music.uk/features/article/an-orchestra-for-this-moment-in-time-the-proms-festival-orchestra

"[David] Pickard asked orchestral contractor Hannah Bates, who works in that role for Britten Sinfonia, to assemble the players. ‘One of our starting points was to make sure we were going for people that were not regular members of ensembles. Then of course: aim as high as we possibly could. So there will be some session musicians in there; there will be people from all sorts of different backgrounds.’

"Wigglesworth has had an input, as have the players themselves. ‘It’s being fixed in the way you’d expect: you go to your principal oboe and say, who would you like to play second with you? We’re not entirely throwing a group of unknown people together. There are of course huge advantages to players who play as a group day in, day out, but there’s also an excitement about a group of players coming together that may never have played together before as an orchestra and who enjoy doing that.'"

Per Nick A.'s response to my one question, here's the Tweet from the BBC Proms' Twitter feed with the program booklet images with the players roster:

https://twitter.com/bbcproms/status/1435669908931682306

From the list, I noticed such names as Sally Pendlebury (whose husband is Douglas Boyd) and Nicola Goldscheider (presumably related to Ben Goldscheider).