The one that shows the triumph of art over adversity

Prom number TBC, July 31

Canadian-Ukrainian musician Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts the newly formed Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra whose line up includes Ukrainian musicians who have recently been refugees, as well as nationals who are members of European orchestras and some of the country’s top performers from Kyiv to Odesa. The military-age male members of orchestras inside the country have been granted an exemption to perform in the new outfit, with the Proms being their second destination (after Warsaw).

The neglected gem

Prom 14, July 25

In its mission to educate as well as entertain, the Proms has always featured little-known works. This year, I’d recommend Ethel Smyth’s late Concerto for Violin and Horn. It’s always a shock to discover just how softly romantic this fierce composer could be (she once composed a March of the Women for the Suffragette movement), tempered by an elegiac mood that looks back to the horrors of the First World War.

The one to take the kids to

Proms 53 & 54, August 27

If your children are really young, you might want to take them to the CBeebies Prom: A Journey into the Ocean (Proms 11 & 12, July 23). But if they’re older, the Earth Prom should be just the ticket. It’s a visually and aurally spectacular traversal of the BBC’s Natural History Unit down the ages, from early black-and-white films featuring a startlingly young David Attenborough to the present, with emotive and evocative scores from Hans Zimmer and George Fenton, mingled with music from around the globe as well as sounds of nature.

The royal celebration

Prom 10, July 22

Britain’s monarchs have always been great patrons of music, and to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, Prom 10 brings together pieces down the centuries which have been inspired by a royal occasion. Some of them you’d expect: Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Parry’s I was Glad and Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 4. Others, such as Judith Weir’s I Love all Beauteous Things, Vaughan Williams’s Silence and Music and the wonderful Courtly Dances from Britten’s opera Gloriana written for the Queen’s coronation in 1952, strike a different, less triumphal note.