Sheridan Smith, Beverley Knight and country-pop duo Ward Thomas will join the BBC Proms 2026 Last Night of the Proms, which will conclude the eight-week festival at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 12 September 2026.
The finale will feature a special tribute to Dolly Parton titled To Dolly, With Love, with Smith performing “9 to 5”, Knight singing “I Will Always Love You” and Ward Thomas taking on “Jolene”.
The Dolly Parton tribute has been arranged by Fiona Brice and will form part of an evening combining classical music, contemporary performances and the traditional Last Night celebrations.
Dolly Parton tribute headlines the Last Night Of The Proms
The To Dolly, With Love tribute will celebrate some of Parton’s best-known songs through performances from three British acts.
Sheridan Smith will perform “9 to 5”, while Beverley Knight will take on “I Will Always Love You”. Ward Thomas will perform “Jolene”, bringing a country influence to the special Proms programme.
The performances will be accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo, with the BBC Singers also appearing.
Yuja Wang and Nicky Spence join the 2026 Proms finale
The Last Night programme will also feature pianist Yuja Wang, who will make her first appearance at the BBC Proms.
Wang will perform Samuel Barber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Piano Concerto, alongside Alexander Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite.
Tenor Nicky Spence will perform selections from Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka and Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls.
The programme will also include two world premieres commissioned by the BBC: Iris of Life by Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley and Dithyramb by Canadian composer Samy Moussa.
These performances will sit alongside the traditional elements associated with the Last Night of the Proms.
BBC Proms 2026 attracted around 300,000 people
The 2026 BBC Proms season ran for eight weeks and featured 86 concerts across the UK.
Approximately 300,000 people attended performances during the festival, while the Proms also recorded significant digital engagement through BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer.
Interim figures show that 1.7 million accounts accessed Proms content across the two platforms between April and September, generating 6.8 million plays.
Sam Jackson, Controller of BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Proms, said:
“Across eight weeks, audiences have embraced the Proms in record numbers on our broadcast platforms. We very much look forward to the centenary of the BBC Proms next year, but for now, we can’t wait to celebrate the end of the 2026 season in style.”
How to watch the Last Night Of The Proms 2026
The Last Night of the Proms will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds from 7:10pm on Saturday 12 September 2026.
Television coverage will be presented by Katie Derham and Nick Mohammed and will be split across BBC Two and BBC One.
Part 1 will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from 7:10pm, before the Finale moves to BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 9:00pm.
The 2026 finale will bring the Proms season to a close ahead of the festival’s centenary celebrations in 2027.
