Children of the '60s took heart on Thursday after works by the Beatles and Frank Zappa won a place in this year's "Prom" concerts, the high point of London's classical music season.
The Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, normally a haven for traditionalists, will this year be enlivened by a performance of "The Yellow Shark" by Zappa, the goateed and eccentric front man of the Mothers of Invention group who died in 1993 of prostate cancer."Highbrows will scoff but the Albert Hall will be packed," said The Times newspaper.
Beatles numbers, including "Penny Lane," "Eleanor Rigby," "I'll follow the Sun" and "Honey Pie," will be sung by The King's Singers, a choral ensemble.
Londoner Amanda McDonald was delighted at the inclusion of works by the Beatles, as she remembered telling her mother back in the 1960s that their works would be accepted as musical geniuses.
"I think I will take my mother to the Proms this year," she wrote in a letter to the London Evening Standard.
Proms director Nicholas Kenyon said: "Lennon and McCartney's songs are now the classics of our days."
He added: "I wouldn't be surprised if people question our judgment but we are robust about this."
The Proms are held every year between July and September, culminating in a rousing and colorful last night, when "Promenaders" join in such patriotic songs such as "Land of Hope and Glory."