Proms 2025 Chineke! plays Shostakovich at the Proms

Experience the ‘electric atmosphere’ of a performance by the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Conducted by Jonathon Heyward, 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 Valerie Coleman and James Lee III form the concert’s American-accented centre.

Broadcast on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer this season

Sir Simon Rattle has regretfully had to withdraw from this concert. We are grateful to Jonathon Heywood for stepping in at short notice