Naresh Sohal
The Cosmic Dance c45'
BBC commission: world premiere
interval
Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor 41'
interval
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 5 in E minor 45'
Nikolai Lugansky piano
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian conductor
The Proms Tchaikovsky symphony cycle continues with the musky melancholy of the Fifth as conductor Peter Oundjian makes his Proms debut. Nikolai Lugansky is the soloist in Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, notorious for its technical demands yet based around melodic ideas of great simplicity.
Punjabi-born British composer Naresh Sohal's second Proms commission, The Cosmic Dance, examines the idea of creation as interpreted in two very different disciplines: mathematical theory and the ancient texts of the Upanishads and the Rig Veda.