The BBC Proms marks a milestone this summer as conductor, arranger and orchestrator Jules Buckley returns to the Royal Albert Hall for his 25th Prom. On 3rd September, he will join forces with the Grammy-winning St. Vincent, creating a one-night-only programme that reimagines her uncompromising music through the full force of the orchestra.
Since making his Proms debut in 2008, Buckley has become known for forging unexpected collaborations between orchestras and contemporary artists. Trained as a classical trumpeter but inspired equally by jazz clubs and dance floors, his twenty-four Proms to date have featured Stormzy, Ledisi, Moses Sumney, Cory Henry, Anoushka Shankar, Arooj Aftab and many others in performances that have expanded the Proms’ possibilities while opening orchestral music to new audiences.
From the euphoric Florence + The Machine Symphonic Night to the cinematic sweep of the Quincy Jones 85th Birthday Prom, from late-night electronic explorations to bold reimaginings of global music, his concerts have redefined the Proms as a space where tradition meets fearless reinvention. Buckley has often been described as a conductor who rips up the Proms textbook. His concerts have swung from Ibiza to grime, from psychedelic drone epics with Jon Hopkins to jazz-synth anthems with Jacob Collier, and disco-fuelled tributes to Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.
Reflecting on this milestone, Buckley says: “When I stepped onto the Proms stage for the first time in 2010, my aim was simple: to open the doors wider. I wanted to create concerts that reflected the music I loved, the world I lived in, and the people I knew it could reach. Twenty-five Proms later, it is humbling to see how much appetite there is for orchestral music that dares to go beyond its comfort zone. Sharing this milestone with St. Vincent, an artist who thrives on risk and reinvention, feels exactly right”
Fresh from three 2025 Grammy wins, St. Vincent makes her Proms debut with music described by Buckley as “bold, uncompromising and completely original.” Buckley has long admired her work. “St. Vincent is an artist I’ve loved for a long time. Annie’s records all have songs that grab you the first time you hear them. Feeling the mastery and imagination in her work means something deeper. It takes you on a journey. I naturally gravitate towards artists where no one record sounds the same.”
Jules says, “The concept here is not just to slap an orchestral wallpaper behind an artist. Annie and her keys player, Rachel, have toured as a duo, which inspired how we reimagine some of the pieces with a larger ensemble. And Annie is an amazing guitarist. If you hear a track like ‘Now Now’ from her debut record, we have kept a lot of that in there, but we will be expanding into new realms to create something unique. It is about drilling into the detail to understand the music at the deepest level. That is what creates the magic.”
The programme draws from across St. Vincent’s catalogue, imagined as a kind of theatrical arc. “We have looked at it like I am creating a plot, with Annie and Rachel as the two main actors,” Buckley says. “It is going to be pretty dark and shocking at times, and intimate at others. I want people to leave wanting to see it again, even though we will never do it.”
Jules Buckley is a Grammy award-winning artist and a go-to orchestrator, arranger, and conductor for some of the biggest names in music. His long list of collaborators and co-performers includes Jacob Collier, Father John Misty, Florence + the Machine, Jon Hopkins, Quincy Jones, Michael Kiwanuka, Anoushka Shankar. Moses Sumney. Stevie Wonder and Paul Weller.
He is Chief Conductor of the Metropole Orkest in the Netherlands and, since 2019, Creative Artist in Association with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, he won a Grammy Award for Sylva with Snarky Puppy and the Metropole Orkest.
Over the past decade, he has featured in numerous BBC Proms concerts. Last year, he conducted The London Contemporary Voices Choir and Orchestra in 'A Symphony of Lungs' with Florence + The Machine, celebrating her debut album Lungs. The Prom received five-star reviews across the board, described by The Guardian as “one crescendo of ecstasy after another” and called “triumphant” by The Times. He returned to the Proms earlier this season, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a concert featuring Arooj Aftab and Ibrahim Maalouf.
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