Performer: Tom Service

A remarkable feat of memorisation – a whole orchestra and no music! – made for an illuminating and exciting introduction to the Soviet composer's “victory” symphony.

Experiments in music and ideas brought together by the London Sinfonietta and guests at a special concert all about space and time.

High wire Beethoven from Nicolas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra, truly live in every sense, with an entertaining deconstructed introduction from Collon with Tom Service.

Nicholas Collon and his Aurora Orchestra remind us that classical music is still made by us, for us, in Rihm, Strauss and Mozart.

Hot on the heels of the Urban Classic Prom came this, the BBC 6 Music Prom. Yet another first in this year’s Proms saw BBC Radios 3 and 6 Music bring together the likes of Cerys Matthews, Laura Marling, Xenakis, The Stranglers, Varèse and the London Sinfonietta, and produce a programme comprising styles that might loosely be described as “alternative”, from the fringes of pop to punk rock via mode

The work of Sir Harrison Birtwistle isn't necessarily the sunniest music in the world, and coming into the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night for a serious-minded evening of discussion and performances of his intricate, modernist-style music by the London Sinfonietta, I confess to having felt a little reluctant to be leaving behind the sweltering heat of the South Bank.