Henry Wood
The first series of Promenade Concerts (or "Proms" for short) was in 1895. The programmes were much longer than they are in concerts today. There were lots of short pieces of music. Wood gradually made his audiences get used to listening to longer pieces of music. He introduced them to new music which had only recently been written. He conducted music by many British composers and European composers. People at that time were very prejudiced. They thought that only German conductors knew how to conduct German composers such as Richard Wagner. Wood showed them that he could do it too. He conducted every night during the Proms season. On Mondays he played a lot of Wagner and on Fridays he played Beethoven. He played music by European composers whose music was not yet well known in England, e.g. Sibelius, Schoenberg and many Russian composers.