BBC Proms: arrival in London

Producers Silvester Vicic and Lauren Rico are in London with host Brian Newhouse preparing for MPR's Last Night of the Proms (LNOP) broadcast. Tune in Saturday at 1:30pm! It's part-serious, part-silly, and just about every Brit near a TV or radio stops whatever he or she is doing for it. Oh, and a few million other people around the world join in via the BBC, too.

There's a Russian thread running through this year's LNOP, and the stars of the show are going to be two of Russia's hottest musical exports of recent years, violinist Viktoria Mullova and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Here are a few snaps from the MPR staff as they get ready for Saturday's show.

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Host Brian Newhouse and producer Lauren Rico quickly set up in a back office of the BBC for a Last Night of the Proms interview.

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Composer Colin Matthews and Brian Newhouse. Matthews scored a major coup for a contemporary composer this year: no fewer than five pieces performed throughout the Proms season. During our Last Night of the Proms broadcast, we’ll hear his brilliant concert overture, Vivo.

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Producers Lauren Rico and Silvester Vicic at Maida Vale, home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers.

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Producers Silvester Vicic and Lauren Rico in violinist Viktoria Mullova’s kitchen. The kitchen table was the site for our interview. She’ll be featured in the Last Night broadcast playing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. As we finished, BBC engineers swooped in to set up for their own interview.

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Mullova is just coming off of a summer break from performing to spend more time with her three school-aged children. These bikes in the backyard of her London home got a lot of use.

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Thank heaven for little girls… Two Londoners on their way home from school prove that they are indeed perfectly capable of saying “stinky cheese.”

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Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky picking up after his kids in the backyard of his London home. He’ll be the star in the Last Night of the Proms broadcast, singing Verdi and Borodin arias, as well as pulling a Union Jack flag from somewhere within his tux and waving it while he sings the Toreador’s Song from Carmen. The crowd, guaranteed, will go absolutely nuts.