91Èȱ¬

Press Releases New season of Twenty Minutes on Radio 3

Category: Radio 3
Date: 25.06.2008
Printable version

91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 launches a new season of Twenty Minutes, broadcast in the intervals of the live 91Èȱ¬ Proms concerts.

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Twenty Minutes offers a diverse selection of content including programmes providing background to the music and composers featured in the Proms, highlights of the Proms Plus events - incorporating the inaugural 91Èȱ¬ Proms Literary Festival - and features on subjects as varied as the great British picnic and an exploration of the power of the riff to musicians - all in 20 minutes.

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Roger Wright, Controller, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 and Director, 91Èȱ¬ Proms, says: "This season of Twenty Minutes, including the new Proms Plus series and Proms Literary Festival, will provide a magnificent range of voices and ideas, a perfect counterpart to the Proms concerts.

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"In these interval features it will be fascinating to learn about the context of the music at the Proms and take our listeners further in their cultural discoveries."

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The programmes offering context to the composers and works featured in the Proms season include:

• Fantasia On A Theme, a three-part series broadcast in the intervals of Proms in which Vaughan Williams's pieces are performed. Roy Palmer (who has published on Vaughan Williams and folk music) tells the stories of the folk songs within Vaughan Williams's work, how he came by them and how he used them.
• Vaughan Williams At The Royal College Of Music. Stephen Johnson and Vaughan Williams biographer and journalist Simon Heffer visit the Royal College of Music to discover more about the time the composer spent at the institution both as a student and as a teacher.
• Memories Of Messiaen explores Messiaen's role as a teacher of some of the most prominent composers of the 20th century. Contributors include George Benjamin and Pierre Boulez.
• IRCAM, 30 Years On. Jonathan Harvey reports on a recent visit by an IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/ Musique) team from Paris bringing their expertise in electro-acoustic music to Scotland.
• Who Goes There? Science fiction writer Justina Robson goes in search of the essence and meaning of Doctor Who and its projection of Britain from inside the blue police box.

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Twenty Minutes also broadcasts highlights from Proms Plus and the first Proms Literary Festival - a series of pre-concert events held at the Royal College of Music's Britten Theatre themed around the evening's performance.

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Proms Plus featured events include:

• Sir Roger Norrington talks to Martin Handley about the challenges of working with different orchestras, ahead of his Prom with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.
• Conductor Pierre Boulez on the music of Janacek with Proms Director Roger Wright.
• Messiaen scholars Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone and Artistic Director of the Netherlands Opera, Pierre Audi, discuss the composer's Saint Francis Of Assisi with Tom Service.

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The Proms Literary Festival explores the themes surrounding the relationships and inspiration between writers and composers to complement the season's concerts, as well as talks by contemporary literary experts and writers.

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Highlights include:

• Ian McMillan and his orchestra showcase the connections between folk music, poetry and storytelling.
• TV dramatist Andrew Davies and writer and critic John Sutherland discuss how Victorian entertainment is portrayed in novels, films and television.
• The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, discusses the work of one of his literary heroes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
• TV dramatist Stephen Poliakoff talks about his favourite Russian literature and its influence on his work.

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Non-Proms-related programmes in the season include Life And Picnics, a three-part series exploring that most wonderful and most British of events - the picnic; Art Of The Riff in which Richard Coles investigates the power of the repeated phrase, talking to composers about how they conjure and use them and to popular musicians about the importance - and the millstone - of the riff to them; and two newly commissioned short stories by Helen Dunmore and Deborah Moggach.

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All 91Èȱ¬ Proms are broadcast live on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3, presented by regular Radio 3 hosts including: Petroc Trelawny, Sean Rafferty, Verity Sharp, Rob Cowan, Tom Service, Martin Handley, Louise Fryer, Sarah Walker, Lucy Duran, Suzy Klein, Donald Macleod, Sara Mohr-Pietsch, Fiona Talkington and Andrew McGregor.

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Petroc Trelawny, Sean Rafferty and Ian McMillan also present a special Proms Preview programme on Thursday 17 July (5-8pm) in front of a live audience from the Royal College of Music with guests from the Proms season ahead, some of whom will be performing live on the night.

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All the Proms are streamed live at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 and available on demand via 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer for seven days after the broadcast.

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Listeners can hear repeat broadcasts of most concerts each weekday in Afternoon On 3 (2pm).

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91Èȱ¬ Proms Chamber Music concerts are broadcast live from Cadogan Hall and repeated the following Saturday (2pm) and the four 91Èȱ¬ Proms Composer Portraits are broadcast on the day of recording, after the evening's Prom.

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For the first time, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3's In Tune programme will come from the Royal College of Music in front of a live Proms audience on the opening night, and regular programmes with Proms-related content across the station will enhance the Proms experience for listeners.

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There will be artist interviews, features and Proms news on programmes such as In Tune and Music Matters, performers and composers joining presenters at concerts, previews in Breakfast, discussions of relevant recordings by Proms artists or of proms repertory in CD Review and more.

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Twenty Minutes broadcast schedule

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• Prom 1: Fri 18 July - Life And Picnics (1/3)
• Prom 2: Sat 19 July - Auld Fergie
• Prom 4: Sun 20 July (matinee) - Irish Melodies
• Prom 5: Sun 20 July (evening) - Proms Literary Festival (Ian McMillan)
• Prom 6: Mon 21 July - Proms Plus (Oliver Latry on Messiaen)
• Prom 7: Tues 22 July - Proms Plus (Sir Roger Norrington)
• Prom 9: Wed 23 July (interval 1) - Twists And Turns: The Shape Of Tune
• Prom 9: Wed 23 July (interval 2) - The Bell by Iris Murdoch
• Prom 10: Thurs 24 July - Fantasia On A Theme (1/3)
• Prom 11: Fri 25 July - The Hugh Lane Gallery
• Prom 12: Sat 26 July (interval 1) - Pasternak And Creativity
• Prom 12: Sat 26 July (interval 2) - Life And Picnics (2/3)
• Prom 13: Sun 27 July - Who Goes There?
• Prom 15: Mon 28 July - The Art Of The Riff
• Prom 16: Tues 29 July - Proms Literary Festival (E A Housman)
• Prom 17: Wed 30 July (interval 1) - World Music Gala
• Prom 17: Wed 30 July (interval 2) - Tribute To Andy Palacio
• Prom 18: Thur 31 July - Bernardo Buontalenti - The Florentine Potter
• Prom 19: Friday 1 August - Faberge's Eggs by Tony Faber
• Prom 20: Sat 2 August - Stockhausen
• Prom 23: Sun 3 August - Proms Lit Festival (Kathleen Jamie and Sarah Maguire)
• Prom 24: Mon 4 August - The Great British Summertime (rpt)
• Prom 25: Tues 5 August - Rebellion by Joseph Roth (rpt)
• Prom 27: Wed 6 August - Memories of Messiaen
• Prom 28: Thur 7 August - Proms Lit Festival (Victorian entertainment)
• Prom 29: Fri 8 August - Fantasia On A Theme (2/3)
• Prom 31: Sat 9 August - The Bargain by Truman Capote (rpt)
• Prom 33: Sun 10 August - A Tale Told By Moonlight by Leonard Woolf
• Prom 34: Mon 11 August - Proms Plus (II Tabarro)
• Prom 35: Tues 12 August - Studio Sheherazade
• Prom 37: Wed 13 August - Slaves Of The Raven Banners
• Prom 39: Thurs 14 August - The Final Exposure: Exploring Fay Godwin's House
• Prom 40: Fri 15 August - Proms Plus (Roger Wright interviews Boulez)
• Prom 41: Sat 16 August - Proms Plus (Belshazzar)
• Prom 43: Sun 17 August - Fantasia On A Theme (3/3)
• Prom 44: Mon 18 August - Proms Literary Festival (Iain Sinclair)
• Prom 45: Tues 19 August (interval 1) - IRCAM, 30 Years On
• Prom 45: Tues 19 August (interval 2) - TBC
• Prom 46: Wed 20 August - Proms Lit Festival (Dr Rowan Williams)
• Prom 47: Thurs 21 August - A Dill Pickle (rpt)
• Prom 48: Fri 22 August (interval 1) - Gurzenich
• Prom 48: Fri 22 August (interval 2) - The Prayer by Itsvan Orkeny
• Prom 49: Sat 23 August - Proms Literary Festival
• Prom 53: Mon 25 August - Proms Literary Festival (storytelling and music with Michael Morpurgo and Julia Donaldson)
• Prom 54: Tues 26 August - Vaughan Williams At The Royal College Of Music
• Prom 55: Wed 27 August - The Pattern Of Lines
• Prom 57: Thurs 28 August - Proms Lit Fest (Katrina Porteous and Mark Cocker)
• Prom 58: Fri 29 August - Profile Of New York Philharmonic
• Prom 59: Sat 30 August - The End Of Summer by Helen Dunmore
• Prom 62: Mon 1 September - The Rise And Fall Of The Thunder
• Prom 64: Tues 2 September - TBC
• Prom 66: Thurs 4 September - Proms Lit Fest (Bridget Kendall)
• Prom 68: Fri 5 September - Proms Lit Fest (Zinovy Zinik and Robert Chandler)
• Prom 69: Sat 6 September - Proms Lit Fest (John Agard and Jean Sprackland)
• Prom 70: Sun 7 September (interval 1) - Proms Plus (Tom Service on St Francois)
• Prom 70: Sun 7 September (interval 2) - In The Beginning Was The Song (rpt)
• Prom 71: Mon 8 September - Next Door by Kurt Vonnegut (rpt)
• Prom 72: Tues 9 September - Proms Lit Fest (Stephen Poliakoff)
• Prom 73: Wed 10 September (interval 1) - Whale Remains
• Prom 73: Wed 10 September (interval 2) - Proms Lit Fest (Lavinia Greenlaw)
• Prom 74: Thur 11 September - Life And Picnics (3/3)
• Prom 75: Fri 12 September - Thirsting For Music (rpt)
• Prom 76: Sat 13 September - The Park by Deborah Moggach

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