Guildhall School alumni at the BBC Proms 2026

This year’s festival once again demonstrates the extraordinary impact of Guildhall artists across the classical and contemporary music world. 

We are very proud that the following School alumni will take centre stage across the season. Highlights include:

• At the Last Night of the Proms, Nicky Spence (Tenor 2005) will help draw classical music’s greatest international party to a close. Earlier in the season, Nicky also appears in Weber’s Oberon, taking on the title role alongside Sir Mark Elder, the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.

  

• Cellist and Guildhall professor Jonathan Aasgaard (Cello 1997) makes his Proms debut, performing Walton’s rhapsodic Cello Concerto with the Sinfonia of London and conductor John Wilson.
• Natalya Romaniw (Soprano 2009) takes to the stage for Richard Strauss’ famous musical farewell Four Last Songs with Paweł Kapuła and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
• Thomas Adès (Junior Guildhall 1988) conducts the National Youth Orchestra in Liszt’s first Mephisto Waltz, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Purgatorio, from Part Two of Adès’ own ballet Dante. Part One of the same work, Inferno, will be performed a few days later by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who also give the UK premiere of Revolución diamantina by Gabriela Ortiz (Composition 1991).
• Jess Gillam (Saxophone 2020) performs in a new Triple Concerto by Gwilym Simcock, alongside fellow BBC Young Musician finalists Ben Goldscheider and Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Jess also appears in a mini choral convention spotlighting voices from the North East and the BBC Singers at Gateshead’s Glasshouse International Centre for Music.
• Pianist and Guildhall professor Alexandra Dariescu (Piano 2010) will perform Nadia Boulanger’s Fantasy for piano and orchestra, with the Hallé orchestra and its Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong.

• Alina Ibragimova (Violin 2004) will perform in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Elena Schwarz. 

  

• The Royal Northern Sinfonia’s Music Director Dinis Sousa (Piano 2012) is joined by the ensemble’s principal musicians Helena Gourd and Jude Carlton to perform Morton Feldman’s Crippled Symmetry.
• Ryan Wigglesworth (Repetiteur 2002) and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra pair Elgar’s First Symphony with two contemporary works: Judith Weir’s Moon and Star and the world premiere of Brett Dean’s The World’s Wife, setting words by Carol Ann Duffy. Later in the season, Ryan celebrates the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 90th anniversary, performing works written in 1936 by Bartók, Rachmaninov and Varèse.
• Maria Włoszczowska (Violin 2019) directs the Royal Northern Sinfonia from the violin, in a programme featuring works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Mozart and a 14-year-old Mendelssohn.
• Liam Bonthrone (Tenor 2020) and Caspar Singh (Tenor 2018) will perform in Richard Strauss’ opera-within-an-opera Ariadne auf Naxos, presented complete at the festival for the first time in nearly half a century by Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Robin Ticciati.

• William Thomas (Bass/Baritone 2000) sings with Peter Whelan and the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment in Haydn’s Nelson Mass. 

  

• Music by Dobrinka Tabakova (Composition 2023) features during the season, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing her exhilarating fanfare Orpheus’ Comet.
• Jules Buckley (Trumpet [Jazz] 2004) returns with his own ensemble in a new collaboration with American singer-songwriter Weyes Blood. Jules also conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a concert with Dutch-Turkish band Altın Gün.

• Iwan Davies (Piano 2016) and Sinfonia Cymru present an afternoon programme exploring the connections and communicative powers of words and music, inspired by the themes of legend and folklore. 

   

Many Guildhall alumni and staff will be featured throughout the Proms, making a significant contribution as part of the orchestras and ensembles heard throughout the season.

We are also delighted that the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO) will perform with members of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a Relaxed Prom from Bristol Beacon. The performance will feature music by composer Oliver Cross, an alumnus of NOYO’s London Ensemble, which Guildhall School leads in partnership with Open Up Music.

Check out the full schedule for this year’s festival here.

_{Photography by John Millar (Nicky Spence); Antonio Olmos (Natalya Romaniw); Marco Borggreve (Thomas Adès); and Robin Clewley (Jess Gillam).}