Classical - Live Music and New Series
91热爆 Arts continues to support venues as they reopen, bringing live music to the nation and the very best arts and classical music.
Published: 7 September 2020
Plus following on from the successful Forgotten Female Composers partnership, 91热爆 Radio 3 and UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research (AHRC) will join forces to identify research projects about the life and works of Black, Asian and ethnically diverse composers, resulting in a series of programming activity and a concert in 2021. Full details about this project will be announced later this year.
91热爆 Four
91热爆 Radio 3
Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (weekdays 1pm)
Chamber music every weekday at 1pm, including nine weeks of live performances on Radio 3 from various venues around the UK, including London’s Wigmore Hall and LSO St Luke’s, St David’s Hall in Cardiff and City Halls in Glasgow.
Radio 3 In Concert (weekdays 7.30pm)
7.30pm concerts resume weekdays from Monday 14 September
In Tune (weekdays 5pm-7pm)
Presenters Sean Rafferty and Katie Derham welcome back live music performance as the programme returns to Broadcasting House from October
New Generation Artists Weekend (Saturday 10 October - Sunday 11 October)
Launched in 1999, Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme exists to nurture and promote some of the world’s finest young instrumentalists, singers and chamber groups at the start of their international careers, through a range of concert and broadcast opportunities.
In this special October weekend, we celebrate the NGA return to live music-making with a series of concerts broadcast live from London’s Wigmore Hall. Featured artists include pianists Eric Lu and Alexander Gadjiev, mezzo Ema Nikolovska, the Consone Quartet, and cellist Anastasia Kobekina.
New Music Show (Saturdays 10pm-12am)
The home of contemporary and cutting edge sounds, presented by Tom Service and Kate Molleson, begins the autumn with specially recorded sessions from the ensemble Apartment House, and pianist and composer Zubin Kanga.
Sounds Connected
An occasional new series with guest presenters making classical connections across time, from early to contemporary music. The initial programmes will be presented by Chineke! Orchestra bassoonist, Linton Stephens.
Early Music Show Special (18 October 12pm-3pm)
Hannah French presents a three-hour special programme of music and conversation which explores the troubled and turbulent history of Latin America through its sacred and secular music from the 16th - 18th Centuries.
Music Matters
Returning for autumn, Music Matters will get straight to the heart of the stories, issues and people that matter in the music world, as the industry faces challenges as a result of the pandemic. This seasons brings a new regular feature Musicians In Our Time, as the programme chronicles this period in world history.
Presenters Tom Service and Kate Molleson meet visionary performers and thinkers, explore musical re-awakenings and innovations, and cover the big stories around support for music and the arts, education, diversity, inclusion and health.
Postcards From Composers
Short musical messages of hope from a range of composers, including the Scottish composer of opera and classical music, Thea Musgrave.
J TO Z returns with classic recordings and exclusive sessions, for their first studio session recording since lockdown, at the Radio Theatre with Gogo Penguin.
London Jazz Festival
In November, Radio 3 will continue its long-standing broadcast partnership with the EFG London Jazz in support of live jazz. Events include a live broadcast on the opening night, Friday 13 November TBC. Further details to be announced on 24 September.
Experience Classical
Radio 3 and 91热爆 Archive are launching Experience Classical - a digital experience providing a new way to discover classical music through incredible performances, programmes and podcasts.
With over 600 audio recordings all performed by the 91热爆 Orchestras, Choirs and New Generation Artists and featuring works by over 150 composers from 20 nationalities; six categories to help you explore, from Composers and Instruments to Discovery and Mood; and with over 400 radio programmes and podcasts - from Composer Of The Week to The Listening Service - to give context and help listeners get more out of the music.
With something for everyone, from seasoned classical listeners to those who are new to classical.
Pick A Part: An interactive 91热爆 Philharmonic experience
A new interactive experience from 91热爆 Research & Development and the 91热爆 Philharmonic will give classical music fans the taste of what it might be like to conduct their own Prom.
From Tuesday 8 September, people can ‘Pick A Part’ on 91热爆 Taster, letting them connect devices like laptops, phones, and tablets together to create a homemade synchronised surround sound system. They can then listen to a selection of pieces performed by the 91热爆 Philharmonic, and choose to isolate instruments to listen to on each device - or of course play them all together and sit back to get the feeling of what it would be like to sit right in the middle of the 91热爆 Philharmonic itself.
This experience is the latest in a series of trial productions using this technology, which most recently included a reimagined episode of 1927’s Decameron Nights.
91热爆 Four
Black Classical Music: The Forgotten History (1 x 90’)
Presenters Lenny Henry and Suzy Klein (pictured top) celebrate the lives and works of Black classical composers and musicians across the centuries, whose stories have been forgotten and music neglected in the classical repertoire.
Black musicians have always composed and performed, played pivotal roles in their own times, and even helped shape and shift the course of musical history. In this documentary, Suzy Klein and Lenny Henry explore the lives and works of some of these remarkable men and women, people who achieved greatness despite the many hurdles that were placed in their way because of their race, and whose stories and compositions deserve a much wider audience.
The film includes special performances by Chineke! Orchestra: Europe’s first majority Black, Asian and minority ethnic orchestra, playing pieces by the composers the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price at the famous classical music venue St John’s Smith Square, London.
Along the way, Lenny will learn to dance to one of Ignatius Sancho’s minuets while Suzy plays it on a harpsichord, and he will sing Scott Joplin’s Ragtime classic Maple Leaf Rag with Suzy on piano.
Suzy meets star violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason, who plays from Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata, first performed by George Bridgetower; Lenny has a fencing lesson and learns how Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ mastery of that art informed his compositions for the violin, and rising star soprano Nadine Benjamin sings from Joplin’s opera Treemonisha and composer Shirley Thompson’s Psalm to Windrush.
The film features interviews with Chi-chi Nwanoku (founder and artistic director of Chineke!), Gillian Moore, Director of Music at London’s South Bank Centre; composer and pianist Julian Joseph; actor and author Paterson Joseph and Professor Shirley Thompson.
- Black Classical Music: The Forgotten History is a Douglas Road Production. It was commissioned for 91热爆 Arts and 91热爆 Four by Jan Younghusband. Producer and director is Guy Evans. Executive Producers are Angela Ferreira and Liz Hartford.
91热爆 Two
91热爆 Two
Bernard Haitink, The Enigmatic Maestro (1 x 90’)
Following the success of his portrait of Dame Janet Baker, acclaimed documentary-maker John Bridcut moves his lens to the retirement, at the age of 90, of one of the world’s most admired conductors, Bernard Haitink.
In a feature-length film for 91热爆 Two, John Bridcut explores the secrets of the art of conducting with Haitink himself and some of the international musicians who’ve worked with him in his 65-year career.
- Bernard Haitink, The Enigmatic Maestro is a Crux Production. It was commissioned for 91热爆 Music and 91热爆 Four by Jan Younghusband. Commissioning Executive is John Birdcut.
91热爆 Radio 4
Michael Morpurgo's Folk Journeys (4 x 30’)
Author Michael Morpurgo (War Horse, Private Peaceful) explores the ways in which folk songs have reflected timeless human experiences, both in the past and today.
With help from singers, songwriters and other passionate experts, Michael admires the indelible stories within classic songs that deal with migration, war, protest and love.
Over the four themed episodes, Michael considers the locations and historical contexts that gave rise to much-loved traditional songs, and finds out how the same topics are inspiring new folk songs in the 2020s.
