Music Matters

This week Kate Molleson focusses on Northern Ireland. Kate visits pianist Ruth McGinley at her studios in The MAC in Belfast to chat about her upcoming album of Irish airs and her unique approach to music making. Beyond Skin is an arts collective using music as a means for cultural education and exchange. Darren Ferguson explains how the collective has been working with musicians seeking asylum and refugee status through creative collaboration and social support. Kate meets with some of these musicians including Shiva, a guitar teacher from Iran.The Lambeg Drum is one of the loudest acoustic instruments and Kate gets to hear one in Co. Antrim, in the company of Willie Hill and Dr Diana Culbertson. They talk about the role the drum plays in the Ulster-Scots community. Back in Belfast fiddle player Kevin McCullagh talks about his journey into experimental improvisation and subverting audiences' expectations of traditional music.Kate hears about the Ulster Orchestra’s new home embedded in the community at Town

To mark World Mental Health Day, Tom Service presents a special programme in collaboration with Professor Sally Marlow, a mental health specialist at King’s College London and BBC Radio 3’s first ever Researcher in Residence. Composer Gavin Higgins talks to Tom about how his early musical life in brass bands helped him to deal with his symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. We visit Bethlem Gallery to meet composer and artist Gawain Hewitt and Fiona Lambert from City of London Sinfonia's 'Sound Young Minds' project, a music-making programme with young people under the care of psychiatric hospitals. Daisy Fancourt talks about a large-scale study looking at how singing can be used to treat postnatal depression, and James Sanderson from NHS England sets out what he sees as music's role in social prescribing. We explore mental health among musicians with writer, musician and mental health advocate Tabby Kerwin reflecting on the situation in the brass band movement, and James Ainscough from the charity Help Mu

Presenter Tom Service visits Blackpool to explore the iconic seaside town’s rich musical history and learn more about the energy of a musical ecosystem famed for its ballrooms, dance bands, and Wurlitzer organs; to hear from the those responsible for creating new musical opportunities for the area’s residents and visitors; and to speak those nurturing the next generation of musicians from across the town. Tom starts at the world-famous Tower Ballroom, where he hears organist Phil Kelsall after his turn at the Wurlitzer Organ. He also tours the wider Blackpool area with Andrew White, Head of Blackpool Music Hub, who tells Tom about his organisation’s work to break down the barriers that often exist in providing all children with access to musical instruments as well as giving them memorable opportunities to perform in Blackpool’s many entertainment venues. Music Director Helen Harrison also joins Tom to discuss the role of Blackpool Symphony Orchestra and its place at the heart of the town’s musical community.

Tom Service is joined in the studio by Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, chief executive of UK Music; Kate Whitley, composer and founder of the Multi-Story Orchestra in south east London; and Olivia Giovetti, music journalist and editor of VAN Magazine, who joins the panel from Berlin. They deliberate on the pressing issues concerning the music industry this year. They hear from Ukrainian musicians, Herman Makarenko and Valeriy Sokolov about how the war in Ukraine is affecting their lives and their music. The panel also responds to Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay as he presents the new National Plan for Music Education, which applies to England only, and sets out the government's vision for music education running to 2030. Eight months after COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, Tom talks to Luke Jenkinson, Managing Director of the climate conscious Global Music Vault in Norway about his commitment to safeguarding and preserving music on glass. And finally, the irrepressible violinist, Patricia Kopatchi

Tom Service talks to drummer, conductor and composer Tyshawn Sorey. A musician very much in demand across both classical and jazz circles, Tyshawn discusses his continuing mission to break down boundaries in music and his recent piece ‘Monochromatic Light’, written for the 50th anniversary of Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, for which he took inspiration not just from the artwork of Mark Rothko, but the piece Morton Feldman wrote for the opening of the space in 1971.Tom also speaks to conductor and writer John Mauceri about his new book, The War on Music: Reclaiming the Twentieth Century, in which he argues the extent to which 20th-century music was shaped by World War I, World War II and the Cold War. John tells Tom why he believes a century of cultural politics has resulted in certain composers not being sufficiently appreciated, and thus not played enough in concert halls today.We also hear from the composer Lavender Rodriguez who tells us how they’re inspiring young people across the north west of England

Tom Service talks to Sir Bryn Terfel about an extraordinary life performing at opera houses and concert halls all over the world. He talks about how his career took flight after winning the Lieder Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World in 1989, as well as his partnerships with conductors like Georg Solti and Claudio Abbado and the composer Stephen Sondheim. Bryn Terfel brings drama to the stage through great characters such as Wotan, Scarpia, Sir John Falstaff and Leporello, with music by Wagner, Puccini, Verdi and Mozart. He tells Tom about the importance of being a great storyteller and gives advice on how to deal with the emotional intensity of the drama. Sir Bryn Terfel talks about how it all began, singing folksongs in Wales, and about how we can look forward to hearing him perform in the future as he prepares for The Flying Dutchman by Wagner at Grange Park Opera this summer and a UK tour in the autumn.

Tom Service meets the British Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso ahead of his starring role in Madame Butterfly at the Royal Opera House. Conductor André J Thomas, who has just been announced as LSO Associate Artist, tells Tom about his life in choral music and his project to unite the voices of gospel and community choirs from across London. There's also a report on the innovative music programme to help rehabilitate inmates at Karachi Central Jail in Pakistan, and news of a project taking music into schools in Bristol.

Kate Molleson visits Glyndebourne Festival Opera to hear about its new production of Ethel Smyth’s ‘The Wreckers’ – the first major staging of this tale of a hostile coastal community in many, many years, heard, as the composer intended, with its original French libretto. This new edition of the opera was researched and typeset by Martyn Bennett, Head of Music Library and Resources at Glyndebourne, using source material from the original score, with missing fragments orchestrated by Tom Poster, and additional help from the British Library.‘Briefly: A Delicious Life’ is a new novel by the writer Nell Stevens, a ghost story based around Fryderyk Chopin and his partner – the French novelist – George Sand, set in a monastery retreat in Mallorca. Kate meets the author to discover more about this tale of love, creativity and sexuality.The folk singer Angeline Morrison, writer and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre and folk singer and academic Fay Hield all join Kate to discuss the overlooked black history in English fol

Tom Service is joined by Dan Grimley for a walk in the Surrey Hills where Vaughan Williams grew up to explore the ways in which the community, sound and landscape of this area shaped his music and his thinking. They also visit Dorking town centre where Vaughan Williams played a central role in the community, especially during World War Two and in the local music scene as conductor of the Leith Hill Musical Festival for almost 50 years.Tom visits folk singer Shirley Collins at her home in East Sussex to talk about the folk songs Vaughan Williams collected and how his legacy continues today. Violinist Midori Komachi talks about taking Vaughan Williams’s music to Japanese audiences and a new dual language release featuring his works for violin and piano, including his tortured Violin Sonata from the 1950s; conductor Vasily Petrenko delves into what makes his music distinctly British; and writer Rob Young discusses the composer's patriotism, socialism and the lens through which we see him today.

Tom Service is joined by Russian music and history expert, Marina Frolova-Walker and BBC journalist, Olga Ivshina to discuss the effect the war in Ukraine is having on Russian music and culture. Clarinettist and conductor, Martin Fröst talks to Tom about reshaping the classical musical arena through multi-media spectacular as he prepares to launch his newest project, Xodus. Singers, Jess Dandy and Joanna Harries take Tom on a musical walk through a woodland in south east London ahead of their "SongPath" at RSPB St Aidan’s nature reserve near Leeds this week. They immerse themselves in the sounds of birds, rain and song as they talk about the benefits connections through nature and music have on mental health.And Tom visits the Coronet Theatre in London where the theatre company, Gare St Lazare Ireland begins rehearsals for a production of Samuel Beckett’s novel, "How It Is." One of Beckett’s most experimental and beautiful works, "How it is" is an extraordinary exploration of language and this production ex

Tom Service talks to virtuoso vocalist Bobby McFerrin about the latest chapter in his musical life and his ceaseless creativity. He’s been inspiring audiences to make music with him during concerts for decades, and now, following a Parkinson’s diagnosis, he is taking this further as he starts to perform live again. Bobby reflects on his early solo shows, the improvisation technique ‘circle singing’ which he developed in the 1980s and whether music can really bring peace to the world. Folk musician Mari Kalkun comes to the studio with her kannel, a traditional Estonian plucked string instrument with a long history which plays a central role in much of her music. Mari talks to Tom about her personal and artistic response to the war in Ukraine and how musical activism is now an essential part of her role as an artist.We visit English National Opera to find out more about a new production of Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid's Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s seminal novel. Tom is joined by director Annilese Miskimmon

Ahead of a new production of Britten's Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera House, Sara Mohr-Pietsch hears from members of the creative team bringing this compelling tale of an outsider to life, in a post-pandemic, 21st-century context. The composer Anna Clyne also talks to Sara about her latest work, including a Handel-inspired piece to be premiered later this month by the Academy of Ancient Music and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. As the situation in Ukraine continues, Sara looks talks to Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, about the company's parting of ways with Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, and to conductor Thomas Sanderling about the decision to leave his post at the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra, asking the question of how one effectively balances art and politics.And the phenomenally successful Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi joins Sara from his home studio in the Italian Alps, where the pandemic allowed a break in his usual hectic schedule to reappraise h

As the Barbican Centre in London celebrates its 40th anniversary, Tom Service asks if the future of music venues and cultural hotspots is going big or small, and how should they engage with the communities around them. We talk to the Barbican’s Artistic Director Will Gompertz about the challenges they face with diversity and inclusion, and put those same questions to two other different sized arts centres – the CCA in Glasgow and the ARC in Stockport – in order to find out how arts centres can best serve the communities they are rooted in.Tom takes a trip to The Holbeck in Leeds where, during the pandemic, Alan Lane’s ground breaking Slung Low Theatre company operated the venue as a food bank, serving the local community with a mission to ‘provide the best cultural life for the people of Holbeck’. Slung Low’s work has been an inspiration for Kate Whitley, the composer and founder of the Multi-Story Orchestra; she tells us how in making the connections between an arts organisation and the communities where the

Image: © Simon FowlerThe Italian pianist Beatrice Rana joins Tom Service to discuss her immersion in Beethoven’s late piano sonatas during Italy’s lockdown, and her relationship with one of the most famous works in the canon – the composer’s ‘Emperor’ concerto. She reflects on how the circumstances of Chopin’s life are articulated in his Scherzi, and on thanking audiences for being part of performances. With Robert Nathaniel Dett’s Oratorio, The Ordering of Moses, receiving its first outing in the UK with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on Wednesday, some 85 years after the live broadcast of its premiere at Carnegie Hall, Music Matters is joined by the conductor Joshua Weilerstein, soprano Nadine Benjamin and researcher, horn player, and conductor Dwight Pile-Gray to explore what Dett’s music can tell us today.As Lindisfarne Castle welcomes back visitors after its winter recess, we speak to the sound artist Paul Rooney and cellist Gyða Valtýsdóttir about their collaboration on a new proj

Sara Mohr-Pietsch talks to Ruth Slenczynska, the last living pupil of Rachmaninoff, from her home in Pennsylvania ahead of releasing a brand new solo piano album entitled My Life in Music. She reminisces about her childhood as a prodigy, connecting with her audiences, and performing still in her ninth decade.The writer, musician and composer Richard Thomas, and contemporary BAFTA and multi award-winning artist, photographer and filmmaker Alison Jackson, join Sara to discuss their new collaboration at the Birmingham Rep – The Covid Variations: A Piano Drama – which takes the form of a unique film-and-concert-in-one depicting everyone from Donald Trump to the Royal Family, and provides an imaginary glimpse into the lived experience of celebrities during the pandemic.As Mali's military leaders expel the French ambassador for comments made by the French foreign minister about the transitional government, ethnomusicologist Lucy Duran and the BBC’s reporter Lalla Sy explain more about the fragile situation inside t

Photo credit: Marco BorggreveSara Mohr-Pietsch talks to viola virtuoso Tabea Zimmermann about her dazzling career on the concert platform. She first picked up a viola at the age of three, and in the decades since she’s performed with the world’s greatest orchestras and has become a hugely respected chamber musician and teacher. She discusses the music that means the most to her, the curiosity that comes from working with young performers, and the future of classical music.Theatre artist Femi Elufowoju jr is making his debut as an opera director with a new production of Verdi’s gruesome tragic opera, Rigoletto at Opera North. He’s drawn on his own life as a British Nigerian to update the drama and the staging, dealing with issues of identity and discrimination, as a way to open up and illuminate the story. He joins Sara along with baritone Eric Greene (Rigoletto) and soprano Jasmine Habersham (Gilda) as they discuss the new staging and their relationship to Verdi’s music.We explore the extraordinary story of t

In the final episode of 2021, Tom Service meets mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and composer and pianist Jake Heggie whose album ‘Unexpected Shadows’ has been nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in the 2022 Grammy Awards. Jamie recently sang in Atlanta Opera’s production of Jake’s first major opera, Dead Man Walking, which tells the story of a nun who becomes the spiritual advisor to a convicted murderer on death row. They discuss the power of opera and song in tackling existential stories of life and death, engaging with new audiences and the need for greater representation and inclusion in opera and on the concert stage.Since the major explosion in the Port of Beirut in 2020, Lebanon has been in crisis with economic collapse, severe poverty, fuel shortages and political instability. But musicians are continuing to make their voices heard there, including the players of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductor Lubnan Baalbaki, despite a significant number of the orchestra’s players havin

Tom Service talks to Lin-Manuel Miranda about making musicals, including Hamilton and tick, tick … BOOM! The soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn talks about the songs she has uncovered by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. And two musicians who have had to leave their homes in Afghanistan share their hopes for the future.

Today Tom Service talks to superstar violinist and conductor, André Rieu about his passion for sharing the joy of music across the world with his Johann Strauss Orchestra. Tom also visits the Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, now a resident of London, whose recordings of Chopin and Bach have earned widespread acclaim. Bach's Goldberg Variations also feature in a radical new reworking, which has been occupying the pianist and composer Xenia Pestova Bennett. She tells Tom more about Gold.Berg.Werk.

Tom Service travels to the Monastery in Gorton, the new home of the Manchester Camerata, to find out how the orchestra is embedding in to the community. Gorton was once the engine-room of the world as it kickstarted the Industrial Revolution, building the engines for the cotton mills. Having since suffered from socio-economic decline, Gorton is now being regenerated and the Manchester Camerata is doing something very new in its move to The Monastery, providing a weekly Music Café for local residents living with Dementia, making lasting connections with a local youth charity, and providing affordable concert tickets for the local community.Andreas Staier has just released a new disc of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2. Tom talks to Andreas about Bach’s decision to compile a second book of Preludes and Fugues for keyboard and how the work fits in his overall output, and especially his later works.Tom also visits director of Dash Arts, Josephine Burton, and musicians Yuriy Gurzhy & Mariana Sadovska,