Announcement, BBC Proms 2015 - Our Top Ten!

The 2015 BBC Proms season was announced earlier today; we've been leafing through our Proms Guide in the office, and have come up with what we consider the top 10 'must-see' Proms of the year.

The full details of this year's entire Proms season are available in the BBC Proms 2015: the Official Guide - out now.

1. Leif Ove Andsnes's Beethoven Journey

Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos (Thursday 23rd - Sunday 26th July, 19.30)

The Norwegian pianist will be only the second person in the festival's history to play all five concertos in a single season (Paul Lewis was the first, back in 2010) and his 'Beethoven Journey' has been a long time in the making: since summer 2011, the works have been 'the centerpiece of [his] life as a performer and recording artist', and the resultant recordings with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra scooped the Disc of the Year crown at the BBC Music Magazine Awards earlier this month.

2. Valery Gergiev's Prokofiev Marathon

Prokofiev: Complete Piano Concertos (Tuesday 28th July, 19.00)

Even by the Mariinsky maestro's usual ambitious standards, programming all five Prokofiev concertos in a single concert is something of a Labour of Hercules: Daniil Trifonov, Sergei Babayan and Alexei Volodin (who all took part in Gergiev's original Prokofiev cycle at the Mariinsky three years ago) share solo duties, with the London Symphony Orchestra.

3. Sir Simon Rattle continues the Proms Elgar oratorio series

Elgar The Dream of Gerontius (Friday 11th September, 19.30)

Following acclaimed Proms performances of The Apostles (Sir Mark Elder) and The Kingdom (Sir Andrew Davis) in 2013 and 2014, Simon Rattle takes on the work which Elgar described as 'the best of me'. Toby Spence is Gerontius (a role which he's made his own over the past five years), with Magdalena Kožená as The Angel, and Roderick Williams as The Priest and The Angel of the Agony; Rattle conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Proms Youth Choir.

4. Alice Coote sings Handel

Opera and oratorio arias (Thursday 3rd September, 22.15)

One of the finest Handel singers of her generation, the great British mezzo mixes sacred and secular and male and female in this late-night programme, including arias from Giulio Cesare, Semele, Hercules, Theodora, Messiah and Tra le fiamme. Harry Bicket conducts The English Concert.

5. Mark Elder conducts Mahler

Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (Saturday 8th August, 19.30)

As his recent recording of the symphony with the Hallé continues to garner excellent reviews, Sir Mark Elder marshalls the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in Mahler's great swan-song. A new short work by British composer Tansy Davies, conceived as a complement to the Mahler, will receive its world premiere.

6. Late-night Bach from Alina Ibragimova

JS Bach: Complete Partitas and Sonatas (Friday 31st July and Saturday 1st August, 22.15)

Bach's works for single instruments are very much in the spotlight this season, with Yo-Yo Ma, András Schiff and Thierry Escaich also giving solo recitals; Ibragimova (who will also give a Saturday Matinee concert of Baroque repertoire and join the Bergen Philharmonic for the Mendelssohn Concerto) kicks things off with these two late-night weekend concerts.

7. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Orango

Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K491; Shostakovich: Orango (Monday 24th August, 19.30)

Salonen conducted the premiere of Shostakovich's incomplete satirical opera about a half-man-half-ape who becomes an unscrupulous press magnate, seven years after its rediscovery in 2004, so who better to give the work its first Proms outing? The Mozart boasts a distinguished soloist in David Fray.

8. Prokofiev from Kirill Karabits

Britten: Four Sea Interludes from 'Peter Grimes'; Korngold: Violin Concerto; Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 (Monday 10th August, 19.30)

Kirill Karabits's ongoing Prokofiev series with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has to be one of the most exciting Russian projects around at the moment; the recording of No. 5 is already in the can, and we have it on good authority that it'll be out in time for the Prom. Plus Nicola Benedetti's Korngold Violin Concerto.

9. Sibelius from Thomas Dausgaard, Ilan Volkov and Osmo Vänskä

Sibelius: Complete Symphonies (Saturday 15th - Monday 17th August, 19.30)

Lots of Sibelius on the menu this season, as 2015 is the 150th anniversary of his birth (Kullervo, with Sakari Oramo on 29th August, is also not to be missed); three of his finest interpreters share the honours for the symphonies, with Julian Rachlin as the soloist in the Violin Concerto (16th August).

10. The Last Night

Featuring Jonas Kaufmann, Benjamin Grosvenor and Danielle de Niese (Saturday 12th September)

Puccini arias and Lehár from the German super-tenor (in only his second Proms appearance), and Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto (plus showpieces by Gershwin and Morton Gould) from Benjamin Grosvenor.