Curator, conductor, orchestrator and musical innovator Jules Buckley is set to have a bigger than ever BBC Proms 2020 season. Having recently signed an exclusive recording deal with Decca Records, for a debut solo album scheduled for release this year, Jules announces an extraordinary run of multi-media events for BBC Proms 2020, with live performances, archive broadcasts and a radio podcast (with Jules as presenter) to run across BBC Radio 1, BBC Four, BBC Radio 3 , BBC Sounds, and iPlayer making him one of the most far reaching artists of the season.
As leader of two high profile orchestras; the Metropole Orkest and Heritage Orchestra, Buckley has presented an astonishing 15 genre-defying BBC Proms over the past nine years. He has worked with some of the hottest names in music and become widely celebrated as the originator of innovative, orchestral re-imaginings, blazing a trail across a broad range of genres with BBC Proms including the 1Xtra Grime Symphony, The Songs of Scott Walker, as well as tributes to Quincy Jones, Nina Simone, Charles Mingus and more.
As testament to his ground-breaking successes, Buckley leads the Britten Sinfonia in an extra special performance broadcast to be streamed live on TV, radio and iplayer from The Royal Albert Hall, as part of the BBC Proms final fortnight. Joining him will be globally adored sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar, electronic artist, Gold Panda and hang player Manu Delago.
Buckley will also reunite with The Heritage Orchestra to perform Ibiza Classics Unplugged, a stripped back piano medley of some much-loved dance hits for BBC Radio 1’s Dance Weekend.
In addition, Buckley’s groundbreaking 2015 Ibiza Prom, a celebration of dance music classics with The Heritage Orchestra and Pete Tong makes its first ever TV broadcast for BBC Four, while BBC Radio 3 will revisit his 2014 ‘Late night with…’ Prom with the Metropole Orkest, featuring Laura Mvula and Esperanza Spalding.
Buckley’s 2020 BBC Proms Season however, began last week, as he stepped into the shoes of Clemmie Burton-Hill to guest-present BBC Radio 3’s ‘Classical Fix’ podcast for four episodes, persuading his star guests Nadine Shah, Jehnny Beth, Poppy Ajudha and DJ Afrodeutsche that classical music can be enjoyed by all.
Jules Buckley said “It’s a huge honour to work with the BBC Proms team again this year, but also to collaborate to create killer content across several other BBC channels. The live prom with Anoushka Shankar, who I’ve been collaborating with for a few years, will be epic as the development work we have done will finally come to fruition, albeit during a global pandemic behind closed doors! It’s exciting that my programme for this Proms season is taking on new platforms, with the Radio 3 Classical Fix podcast, an extra special recording with Heritage Orchestra for the Radio 1 Dance Weekend, as well as two of my most memorable Proms from the vaults.”