Richard Ayres

Many thanks to those of you who voted in this year’s Proms première polls. Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, the turnout was considerably lower than usual, with just under 200 votes cast. Considering that the polls were only open for four weeks this year (instead of the usual 10), and …

Like most of this year’s festivals the 2020 Proms was cancelled due to the pandemic, with the BBC offering a selection of ‘greatest hits’ from their Proms archive. That itself was pretty interesting, inasmuch as (just like with their broadcasts of Choral Evensong) it revealed how one year’s festival is …

Number 18 in my weekly series of Isolation Mixtapes explores some of the best music from the last decade by artists, composers and groups beginning with the letter R. As always, there are two tracks from each of the years 2010 to 2019, featured in chronological order. Here’s the tracklisting …