BBC unveils line-up for world's largest music festival

The world's largest annual music festival Thursday announced its 2014 line-up, with the global reach of classical music placed at the heart of its eight-week program. The 2014 BBC Proms will hold 92 concerts between July 18 and September 13, with most taking place at the 5,000 capacity Royal Albert Hall in central London. A total of 10 orchestras from around the world will make their first appearances at the Proms, including orchestras from China, Greece, Iceland, Lapland, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey. BBC Proms director Roger Wright told Xinhua Thursday afternoon, "This year we are welcoming the largest number of international orchestras that there have ever been in the Proms." "Alongside the groups that have become traditional and fairly regular visitors like the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cleveland Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, and Budapest Festival Orchestra there are a whole group of orchestras which are part of our being able to celebrate an expansion of global western classical music," said Wright. For the first time orchestras from Kazakhstan, Lapland, and South Korea will play, said Wright, joined by the first Chinese orchestra to play at the Proms. "It's the China Philharmonic under music director Yu Long, and they will play a new piece composed by Chinese composer Chen Qigang for the trumpet," Wright added. The anniversary of the First World War is prominent in the program. Wright said he had chosen pieces written by soldiers from the war, such as Vaughan Williams or George Butterworth, who was killed in the war, as well as British composer Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem." Celebrations for the 150th anniversary of German composer Richard Strauss's birth, and the 80th birthdays of two living British composers, Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies will also be held during the festival. Non-classical music will be featured too, with Paloma Faith and Rufus Wainwright giving proms, and The Pet Shop Boys perform the world premiere of their new piece, A Man from the Future, based on the life and work of Alan Turing. There will also be a staged performance of the Shakespeare-inspired musical "Kiss Me, Kate" in its Proms debut. There are also 12 world premieres, 10 of which are BBC commissions, and 23 European, British and London premieres.