Planning a Proms season that pleases everyone is the great impossible of artistic programming.

Emphasise the contemporary and expect howls of protest from those who want the festival to serve as something of a starter pack for the classical canon. Play up the heritage, however - composer anniversaries, symphony cycles, world’s greatest orchestras - and be labelled staid or dutiful.

And it’s the same with just about every snipe that's hurled at the door of the Proms director. Too much British music is parochial. Too little is neglectful. If world music, pop or jazz get more than a nod, that’s diluting the central brand. If they don’t, that’s just tokenism.

But if Roger Wright’s second season as Proms director doesn’t quite flash with the fire of real reinvention, he has amply squared each treacherous circle. Remember the summer that the Proms failed to include a single bar of music by a female composer? This season is practically oestrogen-soaked, with new works by no fewer than five bona fide women (well, it’s a start).

The inevitable anniversary composers, among them names as esoteric as Schnittke and Andriessen as well as the more familiar Handel and Haydn, receive tributes of depth and ambition. The day dubbed “Indian Voices” may be holding down the single world music slot, but with Bollywood dancing, free Indian folk in Kensington Gardens as well as the purer sounds of khyal and Varanasi singing filling the bill, it’s hard to imagine anyone will feel short-changed. Even the dreaded light music concert looks like it has integrity on its side - a date with the MGM musical, 75 years old this year.

Most of all, however, Wright has conjured up a panoply of starry evenings - the sheer hit rate of unmissables in this season is undeniable. What other festival could boast a clutch of pianists as distinguished as Martha Argerich, Lang Lang, the chic Labeque sisters and Stephen Hough (four times over)?

Daniel Barenboim"s miraculous Arab-Israeli orchestra are no strangers to the Proms, but this time around we get them for three fantastic sounding (and nicely contrasting) dates, one a full-length opera. It's also good to see big, child-friendly days expanded to include, this time around, a free family Prom and a Handel-inspired Messiah sing-a-thon. It's vital this festival keeps its doors as wide open as possible, while maintaining the lustre of five-star performers, and that balance has been preserved.

So, the missed opportunities and smattering of grumps? Well, the bitty first night still looks more like a Proms demo tape than a real curtain-raiser of flair or intent. The long-awaited addition of the prolific Michael Nyman to the roster of Proms composers will thrill him, but few others. And the supposedly complete cycle of Stravinsky ballet scores neglects the one piece that would have come off best in the big top that is the Royal Albert Hall - Circus Polka, originally written to accompany an ensemble of elephants. Did the BBC's health and safety squeeze them off the schedule?

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