On Avoiding the Proms...

I’m not proud of it, but as each year passes I find myself avoiding the Proms more and more – it has kind of reached an epidemic level this year - I’ve only listened to one piece from one Prom. As a composer, and a music lover, this trend slightly surprises me especially as I used to count the days until the Proms Guide was released with fervent anticipation – last year I didn’t even buy a guide and I’ve only got one this year as it was a gift from a friend. What could possibly have triggered this reaction in me?Well, for a start I’m an insanely jealous and envious person (as I suspect most composers are – even the most successful) and I think that my pieces should be programmed in the country’s leading music festival. I guess that is no surprise really. I’m also particularly aware of my age, and that people younger than me are being commissioned and performed – there is an acute sense that time is passing me by – in other countries this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but in the UK there is a definite trend for pushing young composers through (Knussen, Benjamin, Adés etc). I also find many of the programmes just not very exciting – it doesn’t help that I'm not really into Brahms, Berlioz, Mahler and others – certainly not exciting enough to take the time to travel to London to watch. I guess, rather more prosaically, that living ninety minutes away and having a young child don’t help my Proms attendance also.There were a couple I was interested in: I’d like to have heard the David Matthews/Vaughan Williams Dark Pastoral in the buttock-troubling ‘Last Night of the Proms 1910’ and the BBC Singers with a new work by Gabriel Jackson. I’m led to believe the Huw Watkins Violin Concerto was good and that there was some hubbub with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Hammered Out, which would have been worth hearing, but after that I’m clutching at straws.I still the think the Proms is an amazing institution and probably is the world’s greatest music festival (even with Jamie Cullum and Doctor Who). I hope to re-kindle my love affair one day, but for the moment we are firmly estranged. Anybody feel the same?PAC