Experience the ‘electric atmosphere’ of a performance by the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first minority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Conducted for the first time by Sir Simon Rattle, together they perform Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony: over 50 minutes of brutality, violence, despair and terror, followed by two minutes of triumph. A portrait of life – and death – in Stalin’s Russia, it’s a fierce act of musical testimony. The Prom opens with the steady thrum of Coleridge-Taylor’s orchestral dance The Bamboula, while works by US composers George Walker and Valerie Coleman form the concert’s American-accented centre.
Broadcast on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer this season
Sir Simon Rattle © Chris Christodoulou/BBC