42x3 - BBC Proms

with Leonard Bernstein conducting his Songfest 'I love the Proms' declared Leonard Bernstein, after his Prom debut last September with the Vienna Philharmonic - 'the audience is incredible, the atmosphere unique.' Tonight Bernstein, who will be 70 next month, returns to the Proms conducting an international youth orchestra from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany, which he has been training for the past two years. This first of six Omnibus visits to the Royal Albert Hall for highlights of the 1988 Prom season reflects this year's literary theme. Bernstein's large-scale song-cycle for orchestra and six soloists consists of poems by 13 American poets ranging from 1650 to the present day. They include Edgar Allan Poe, e.e. cummings and Edna St Vincent Millay. Soloists: Janice Meyerson (soprano) Candice Burrows (mezzo-soprano) Daisy Newman (alto) Salvatore Champagne (tenor) Jerrold Pope (baritone) Robert Osborne (bass) Introduced by Michael Berkeley