The one Proms concert that reaches listeners outside classical music, the Last Night brought Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to the Royal Albert Hall, with Yuja Wang and Nicky Spence.
Sakari Oramo conducted his seventh Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington on Saturday 12 September 2026, closing an eight-week season. Yuja Wang and Nicky Spence were the soloists.
The Proms began on 10 August 1895 as Mr Robert Newman’s Promenade Concerts, at the newly built Queen’s Hall. Henry Wood, then 26, conducted the first season and went on conducting for half a century.
The concerts were popular at first, and Newman raised the standard by stages until he had made a public for classical and modern music. Standing cost a shilling. The series moved to the Royal Albert Hall in the war and has been broadcast by the BBC since 1927.
The Last Night closes each season. It keeps a first half of concert repertoire and gives its second half to the traditional finale.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra played, joined by the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers. The arena and gallery were left to standing promenaders, the practice that gave Newman’s concerts their name in 1895.