This is the first full-scale “Last Night of the Proms” since 2019 (disrupted in previous years due to the pandemic and the death of Queen Elizabeth II). We’ve all missed bobbing up-and-down to Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea-Songs (1905), letting off whizzing balloons and firing confetti cannons. As an event, its origins might be a jingoistic, nationalistic pat-on-the-back for another job well done hosting “the world’s greatest classical music festival”. But this year, it really feels like a celebration of the UK and classical music in general as a place of diversity and inclusion.

It’s hosted for the third time by openly lesbian conductor Marin Alsop, who in 2013 became the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms – something she reminds the audience of, to a long, deafening roar of applause: “It reminds me of how much work remains to build a more equitable world for the next generations.” There’s another deafening roar of approval, as there has been all season, for the BBC Singers (who nearly got axed this year due to BBC budget cuts). It is in this spirit that we heartily sing the traditional songs, including the National Anthem, “Rule Britannia”, “Land of Hope and Glory”, “Jerusalem”, with the whole audience linking arms for “Auld Lang Syne”.

The programme’s message of diversity and and inclusion is also carried through its soloists and repertoire, celebrating Black, female, and foreign musicians. Celebrated British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason MBE, the first Black musician to win the BBC Young Musician award, lends his crowd-pleasing, masterful tone to “Deep River” from 24 Negro Melodies (1905) by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (“the Black Mahler”). Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen – surely the loudest soprano on earth? – stuns with a long, theatrical excerpt from Verdi’s opera Macbeth (1847), and blows the roof of in “Rule Britannia”. Among the traditional Union Jack flags and costumes, the entire auditorium is full of flags from all over the world, and a great many European Union flags, too.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra give a mighty, utterly polished sound, even with rowdy audience members drunkenly clapping and singing along, throughout the Prom’s epic, three-and-a-half-hours runtime. Walton’s Coronation Te Deum (1952) is sung gloriously by the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra, a highlight of the whole evening.

https://youtu.be/nqTWGIDbMc4?si=lNrhwZNT2BPwDYf_

Tickets for all 71 Proms are available from just £8 on the BBC Proms 2023 website.