‘It was like 26-dimensional chess’: Roger Wright on managing the Proms

It sounds like a dream job — being in charge of what is now regarded as the greatest classical music festival in the world. But most of us would quail at the challenge. Quite apart from needing enough musical imagination to come up with 75 nightly programmes, it must surely be a logistical nightmare, corralling 300 musical artists and 315 works into a two-month season? Roger Wright, director of the BBC Proms since 2008 (as well as Controller of BBC Radio 3), obviously relishes the task.

‘I don’t do sitting in the chair dreaming about what we might put on,’ says Wright. ‘Nor is every single thing my personal choice.’ Yet throughout this year’s programme there are dozens of what’s become the trademark Wright Concert: unlikely combinations of composers and performers, guaranteed to provoke but also tantalise.

How do you, and your concerts team, begin work? With a blank sheet of paper? Or a set of ideas? A preconceived plan?