BBC Radio 4 – 15 Dec 2020 – Front Row – The Lark Ascending at 100
On the hundredth anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, violinist Jennifer Pike tells us what makes it a firm favourite in the British musical consciousness.
BBC Radio 3 – 8 Mar 2020 – Words and Music – Goddesses and Monsters
Celebrating International Women’s Day with an exploration of women, sacred and profane: Words and Music dives into the worlds of women from Medusa to the Madonna.
This edition with writing and music explores the iconography and inner lives of Greek goddesses, mermaids and sirens, oracles, witches, and Mary, mother of Jesus. The composers include Joan Tower, Amy Beach, Mica Levi and Elena Kats-Chernin among others and readings range from Nikita Gill to HD, Edith Wharton to Audre Lord.
BBC Radio 4 – 24 Dec 2020 – Front Row – Le Gateau Chocolat
Opera diva, drag artist and cabaret turn Le Gateau Chocolat concludes our increasingly wistful festive series on the best parties on screen with an ode to the don of the movie party, Baz Luhrmann.
BBC Radio 3 – 17 Nov 2019- Words and Music – Secrets and Discoveries
Hidden messages, secret loves and journeys of discovery in poetry, prose and music.
BBC Radio 4 – 7 Jan 2021 – Front Row – Pa Salieu
Pa Salieu, the Gambian-British artist from Coventry, has been named as the winner of the BBC Sound of 2021. His single Frontline was the most played track on BBC Radio 1Xtra in 2020. In 2019 he was shot in the head, but recovered to release his debut mixtape Send Them To Coventry at the end of 2020 and now picks up one of the biggest accolades in new music.
BBC Radio 4 – 18 Dec 2020 – Front Row – Winnifred Atwell
Pianist Winifred Atwell was the first Black British artist to reach number 1 in the UK charts. She had a string of hits throughout the 50s and is still the only woman to have an instrumental International Number 1. On the day a new plaque is revealed at the site of the hair salon she founded in Brixton, we talk to music journalist and academic Jacqueline Springer about her legacy and influence.
BBC Radio 4 – 27 Aug 2020 – Front Row – Errollyn Wallen
British composer Errollyn Wallen has been putting the finishing touches to her new arrangement of the Hubert Parry hymn Jerusalem, to be performed as part of a very different Last Night of the Proms. After a public row about whether to drop the traditional favourites that make up the concert’s programme, the Proms announced new versions for a smaller, socially-distanced orchestra with no choir. Errollyn joins Samira to discuss the work of arranging well-loved music, her relationship with Jerusalem, and the Proms.
BBC Radio 4 – 14 Aug 2020 – Front Row – Julian Bream obituary
Classical guitarist Sean Shibe discusses the impact of Julian Bream, the British guitarist and lutenist who has died aged 87.
BBC Radio 4 – 5 Jan 2021- Front Row – the origin of the blues
The genre that helped define American music and describe the Black American experience is the subject of a new series of album releases which trace the genesis of blues, ragtime, hokum and gospel from the mid-1920s. Matchbox Bluesmaster Series claims to be the most comprehensive survey of the origins of Black American blues music – Kevin Le Gendre assesses the success of its first instalment.
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