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The festival opens with Elgar’s biblical oratorio The Kingdom – the beautiful ‘slow movement’ of a planned musical triptych. Celebrated Elgarian Sir Andrew Davis conducts the massed forces of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Chorus of Wales. They are joined by a distinguished cast of soloists including Proms regulars Christopher Purves and Catherine Wyn-Rogers.

In its only UK concert this year, classical supergroup the World Orchestra for Peace returns to the Proms with its conductor Valery Gergiev. Fantasy confronts reality in a programme that moves from the fairy-tale magic evoked in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten to the human tragedy of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. Roxanna Panufnik’s Three Paths to Peace celebrates the common ground shared by Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Turbulent mythical love meets poised Classical elegance in a concert from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra that sets Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 alongside Ravel’s sensuous ballet score Daphnis and Chloe. Launching us far beyond either Mozart’s Vienna or Ravel’s Paris, Jonathan Dove’s new orchestral work Gaia Theory explores the idea of life on our planet evolving alongside the environment.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 – an orchestral showpiece of shifting moods and intense emotions – is the culmination to this concert by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Philharmonic. The orchestra is joined by Pianist Alexandre Tharaud for Ravel’s virtuosic Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and the programme opens with Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s atmospheric Night’s Black Bird.

Two rarely heard masterpieces continue our 150th-anniversary celebrations of Richard Strauss: the mighty Festival Prelude and the Deutsche Motette (practically a concerto for choir). We move to more familiar musical territory with Strauss’s Four Last Songs, whose late-Romantic nostalgia is shared by Elgar’s Second Symphony.

Singer and broadcaster Clare Teal transports us back to the 1930s, as two of the greatest swing bands of the day – one led by Count Basie, the other by Duke Ellington – faced off in a memorable Battle of the Bands. In this Late Night Prom, present-day leaders James Pearson and Grant Windsor fight it out in their own, roof-raising battle.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Proms welcomes back Canadian violinist James Ehnes as soloist in Walton’s virtuosic yet intimate Violin Concerto. SøndergÃ¥rd and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ NOW continue with a suite from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s ballet Caroline Mathilde and two great orchestral works by Sibelius – his soaring Fifth Symphony and the more delicate, mystical Swan of Tuonela.

Baritone Roderick Williams joins the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scottish Symphony Orchestra in music inspired by the First World War. Butterworth’s setting from Housman’s A Shropshire Lad depicts a world on the brink of collapse, while Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony is a curdled vision of war-ravaged France. Both Rudi Stephan and Frederick Kelly were killed in the conflict, the latter leaving behind the exquisite Elegy for strings, the former the more muscular Music for Orchestra (1912).

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the Monteverdi Choir returns to the Proms under Sir John Eliot Gardiner for one of the greatest choral works of the repertoire – Beethoven’s mighty Missa solemnis. Join them on this tumultuous spiritual journey in music that defies simple resolution.

After her triumph at last year’s Last Night of the Proms, Marin Alsop returns, joining the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra for Mahler’s colourful and programmatic First Symphony. The muscular drive of John Adams dominates the first half, featuring the UK premiere his Saxophone Concerto as well as his iconic orchestral miniature Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

Brit Award-nominated Paloma Faith brings her sleek vocals and retro style to a Late Night Prom. The British singer-songwriter is joined by a 42-piece Jazz Orchestra and the Urban Voices Collective. This is cabaret, Royal Albert Hall-style.

The centrepiece of this Prom by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and Han-Na Chang is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Vivid with textural contrasts and sudden surging climaxes, it is matched for drama by Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto – a Proms favourite, with a slow movement that burns with restrained passion.

After an absence of almost a decade, the Cleveland Orchestra returns to the Proms with music by Brahms and Jörg Widmann. Brahms’s stormy and intricately structured First Symphony contrasts with the levity of his Academic Festival Overture, while Widmann’s concerto – composed for Cleveland’s principal flautist Joshua Smith – is both playful and disorienting.

On Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s 80th birthday, the Proms pays tribute in a concert of works selected by the composer himself. The concert overture Ebb of Winter captures the rugged beauty of Davies’s Orkney home. We see a different side of island life in the joyous ebullience of his Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise; the virtuosic fourth Strathclyde Concerto, for clarinet and orchestra, completes the concert.