BBC Proms in the North East – celebrating our music region
As we welcome back BBC Proms with opening night at The Fire Station in Sunderland, our Chief Executive Abigail Pogson reflects on four years of BBC Proms in the North East, what this moment means for our music region and how partnership, investment and creativity is at the heart of it all. We’re only just getting started.
Last night the BBC Proms in the North East opened in Sunderland at The Fire Station with Soweto Kinch and three amazing musicians and their bands – Rivkala, Joe Webb and Theo Croker. I was hugely proud of our region, sitting in a packed Fire Station.
We’ve always been a musical region in the North East and Tees Valley. It runs through people’s veins as part of their identity, wellbeing and increasingly as part of the region’s economic life. What is joyful is that it’s not just in one place – it’s everywhere. Just as talent is.
The annual BBC Proms in the North East is an emblem of a wider change happening across the region.
Four years ago, BBC Proms came to the North East first in a new model of collaboration to bring the world’s greatest classical music festival out of the Royal Albert Hall and central London. From a single concert and an incredible first-ever live broadcast beyond London four years ago, it has grown into a four-day festival across the region going out on BBC Two, BBC Four, Radio 1 and Radio 3. And we plan more for the next two years – across the region and online – ending with the BBC Proms centenary in 2027.
This has been possible because of investment from the BBC, our North East Mayor and our local authorities and partners. The festival brings together resources to make more happen for the region. We’ve seen this across many areas in recent years and it’s a powerful way of unlocking potential and inspiring others to action. The BBC has increasingly been partnering in the region to huge impact, from a successful North East Film Partnership to the BBC Introducing partnership supporting emerging music talent. Both of these bring together the North East and Tees Valley to create greater impact and opportunities for our creatives and ultimately audiences and our communities.
It is part of a rise in the creative sector in the North.
“[Music] runs through people’s veins as part of their identity, wellbeing and increasingly as part of the region’s economic life.”
Over the past decade, Sunderland has undergone remarkable culture-led regeneration, transforming the city and the lives of its people. And it just keeps going.
In January 2025, Sunderland successfully bid to join the World Music Cities Network and is now actively partnering with Music Cities such as Berlin, Sydney, and Manchester. To celebrate its status as Music City, the city is now hosting a Year of Music from June 2025 to June 2026, featuring over 500 performances across all musical genres, from Mozart to Motown, folk to funk, and rock to baroque.
It is a remarkable journey. Which was preceded by another remarkable journey which started a decade before in 2004 – that of The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, which turns 21 this year. Over 20 years it has generated £1billion in economic value for the region and offered every single young person in the region at least two opportunities to be involved in music – across all genres of music. It has triggered a step change in provision and ambition for the region which has had a ripple effect across the North and its practice is still held up as a model of international excellence.
A new energy of national partnership has emerged in the past couple of years: BBC Introducing, a Warner studio in Newcastle, a Great North Music Export Office, headline events in 2025 – MOBO Awards, Mercury Prize, BBC Proms in the North East to give a few examples. Music tourism has increased from £186 million to £364 million over the past 12 months and an additional 1,400 jobs and a new generation of the region’s musicians are hitting international markets – Sam Fender, JADE, Finn Forster, Courtney Dixon.
It’s all happening here and really, we are just getting going.
Last night in Sunderland was emblematic of all of this. And also, just a fantastic gig happening in the UK’s city by the sea. This Friday, the BBC Proms in the North East are on to something totally different – South Shields’ own JADE performing arrangements of her hits with our orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia. The concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday 27 July, and on Sunday 27 July at 8pm on Radio 1 with a later TV broadcast on BBC2.
BBC Proms in the North East continues 25-27 July at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Listen and watch wherever you are on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
Photos: Thomas Jackson / TyneSight Media