BBC Proms 2019

Afgelopen woensdag stond het Metropole Orkest, onder leiding van Jules Buckley, voor de zesde keer in de Royal Albert Hall tijdens de BBC Proms. Het orkest bracht hier samen met Ledisi en Lisa Fischer een ode aan Nina Simone in ‘Mississippi Goddam: An Homage to Nina Simone.’

Gelukkig kunnen we nog even nagenieten van dit fantastische concert. Het is hier namelijk volledig terug te luisteren. Daarnaast wordt het door BBC Four op tv uitgezonden op 30 augustus om 23.25 uur en herhaald op BBC Radio 2 op 13 september.

Hieronder een overzicht van wat er in de media verscheen m.b.t. het concert:

“This celebration of her art was masterminded by Jules Buckley, chief conductor of the Metropole Orchestra, who offered a judicious mix of the familiar with the little-known, the intimate with the sassy and strutting, the protesting with the heartbroken. He called on the services of 10 arrangers, including himself, to come up with orchestral versions of Simone’s enormously subtle, Bach-inflected arrangements. The temptation to go further and make something over-elaborate must have been strong, but they all resisted it. Buckley’s own arrangement of Be My Husband, Simone’s song about a difficult marriage (with words by Simone’s own abusive husband) had a telling simplicity, just drums and clapping hands.”
(The Telegraph, Prom 45 Mississippi Goddam, review: A beautiful reminder of Nina Simone’s art door Ivan Hewett)

“Call me dull for opening a review with a description of the queue, but at the Royal Albert Hall, the queue for Prom 45 – “Mississippi Goddam: A Portrait of Nina Simone” – is extraordinary. Lines of people snake from all the different entrances to the building, winding round it and out in different directions. There are plenty of the usual Promming types, but also young people and people of colour, all here to celebrate the life and work of a black woman who lived through the civil rights movement, dedicating her life to activism and pushing musical boundaries.”
(NewStatesman, Prom 45: Mississippi Goddam: A Portrait of Nina Simone is a thrilling celebration of a musical icon door Emily Bootle)