Proms 2026 Shostakovich’s Tenth

Cristian Măcelaru, whose own childhood was spent in communist Romania, conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich’s devastatingly powerful Symphony No. 10. Premiered after Stalin’s death in 1953, it’s a work whose fierce rage, violence and grief tell a terrifying story of life in the dictator’s Russia – a painfully personal history, and one shot through with the composer’s own musical signature: DSCH. The concert opens with the UK premiere of Édith Canat de Chizy’s intricately textured Skyline for three percussionists, timpani and orchestra – a musical vision of the cosmos, from void to teeming, multiplying musical life.

Cristian Măcelaru © Peter Adamik