Proms 2026 Gershwin’s Piano Concerto

James Gaffigan and the BBC Symphony Orchestra mark the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence with 100 years of American music. South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son joins the orchestra for Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F major – its Charleston rhythms and songful slow movement capturing the energy of 20th-century New York. Samuel Barber’s rarely heard Symphony No. 1 in One Movement marries the lyrical intensity of the composer’s beloved Adagio with taut structural drama. The concert opens with the UK premiere of contemporary jazz great Wynton Marsalis’s mercurial, kaleidoscopic Concerto for Orchestra.

Yeol Eum Son © Marco Borggreve