Last week, our Composer-in-Association Joe Hisaishi made his debut at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, conducting Steve Reich's The Desert Music and two of his own pieces, a suite from Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron, and his apocalyptic yet tender The End of the World. We were joined on stage by counter-tenor John Holiday, the BBC Singers, Philharmonia Chorus and the National Youth Voices.
See more photos, reviews and the audience's reaction from the night below.
You can also listen back to the concert on BBC Sounds.
Photos © Chris Christodoulou
Joe Hisaishi played and conducted from the piano for the opening piece, a suite from the 2024 film The Boy and the Heron, his latest collaboration with director Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli.
Inspired by Joe Hisaishi's visit to the site of the World Trade Center attacks in New York on September 11 2001, The End of the World is a symphonic landscape that confronts devastation, loss and the destabilisation of the world. The first two movements come alive with the erratic rhythms and noises of New York, featuring a poignant moment in St Paul's Chapel, near Ground Zero, as a solo cello introduces the movement. Movements three and four include text written by the composer himself and his daughter, Mai Fujisawa, sung by countertenor John Holiday, the BBC Singers, Philharmonia Chorus and National Youth Voices in tense music that warns of Armageddon with pulse-raising alarm bells. The finale movement incorporates songwriter Arthur Kent and lyricist's Sylvia Dee 1962 song The End of the World, as performed by Skeeter Davis, sung against a backdrop of eerie strings to chilling effect.
"Sweeping waves of sound, all colourful post-minimalism topped by frothing strings." The Guardian
The evening ended with Steve's Reich's minimalist and percussion-heavy The Desert Music, a musical manifestation of early-1980s nuclear anxieties in the midst of the American-Soviet arms race. Written in an arch-like ABCBA structure, the central third movement features the slow tick-tock of a nuclear countdown, played by the xylophone. The hypnotic refrains of the choir return to poems by William Carlos Williams, including The Orchestra, which warn of humanity's tendency towards self-destruction that it has faced in the past, is facing in the present, and will face again in the future: "It is a principle of music to repeat the theme. Repeat and repeat again, as the pace mounts... Say to them: Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes. Not that he can realize them, he must either change them or perish.”
"Hisaishi never flagged... The RPO, BBC Singers and National Youth Choir proved just as valiant." The Times
Audience reactions on Instagram and Facebook:
"Beautiful. What a magical evening this was."
"🔥 a truly wonderful privilege to have seen this - loved every second"
"It was incredible to be there!! 🎼🎵"
"What a breathtaking performance 😍 👏 💖"
"An utterly brilliant evening of vast, complex, moving music. You could hear a pin drop, as people listened intently and intensely."
"The end of the World brought me to tears!"
"Extraordinary Prom - total immersion in the minimalist sound world and John Holiday's voice was exquisitely beautiful...Sylvia Dee's lyrics at the end of "The End Of The World" were deeply moving."
Thank you to everyone who came to see us!
We're back at the Royal Albert Hall for our second appearance at the BBC Proms on Sunday 7 September with our Music Director Vasily Petrenko for Vaughan Williams' 'London' Symphony, Milhaud's Le boeuf sur le toit and Respighi's Pines of Rome.
Joe Hisaishi, Leader Duncan Riddell and Sub-Leader Janice Graham after rehearsals © Tim Lutton/RPO