Written by The music of Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake and Palmer is set to reverberate around the hallowed walls of London’s Royal Albert Hall once more as the BBC has finally included progressive rock in its ever-expanding season of the 131st Proms (and the 99th since the BBC has been involved).
Prog joins a celebration of Miles Davis‘s centenary, reflections on Benjamin Britten, a tribute to Disney composer Alan Menken, an “immersive take” on Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians while South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo will lead a celebration of Paul Simon’s Gracelands album on its 40th anniversary, alongside tributes to the music of James Bond and to Motown soul legend Marvin Gaye as well as a concert by Turkish psych-folk band Altın Gün as part of the 2026 BBC Prom season.
The Prog Prom will take place on July 18 and will be curated by Stuart Maconie, presenter of the excellent prog-friendly Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music, who also curated the successful Northern Soul Prom in 2023, and will feature new orchestral arrangements of hits by Genesis, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Jethro Tull, among others.
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“Prog is simply great music released from the arid strictures of cool and from the sneers of gatekeepers,” says Maconie, who goes on to state in an essay for this year’s Proms programme that some of the genre’s “excesses and follies can seem silly” to a modern eye, while insisting the genre shouldn’t be written off.
Every concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 and BBC Sounds, with 24 Proms programmes on BBC television and iPlayer. More than 300,000 tickets are available across the season, with almost a quarter of those available for just £8.
