Music Matters

Credit: Library of Congress, Carl Van Vechten Collection [LC-USZ62-94955]Kate Molleson talks to Scottish writer and poet Jackie Kay about the extraordinary life of the pioneering blues singer Bessie Smith, and asks what Bessie's blues can tell us a century on. Kate also hears from American composer Meredith Monk about the recurring nature of the big themes of her work, from plagues to dictatorships, and we hear about the piece she’s currently working on, Indra's Net – 10 years in the making and a work dedicated to humanity’s relationship with nature. Plus, as part of the BBC's 'Soundscapes for Wellbeing' project, we look at how natural and musical soundscapes can affect mental health, including a groundbreaking study by the University of Exeter called 'The Virtual Nature Experiment', which explores how digital experiences of nature might impact wellbeing. Kate is joined by Alex Smalley from the University of Exeter, the sound recordist Chris Watson, and composer Nainita Desai.

Bleak news on the classical music front this week, including Sir Simon Rattle's departure from the London Symphony Orchestra in favour of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich; and reports that musicians touring in the EU will need work permits for each individual country they perform in. Tom Service talks to Charlotte Higgins of The Guardian, and Jamie Njoku-Goodwin of UK Music to make sense of it all. We hear about the little-known Welsh chanting tradition of Can’r Pwnc, and how the Cardiff theatre company August 012 is remoulding the style as a frame for ancient love poetry.The American scholar Rachel May Golden has written a new book on southern French troubadours during the time of the Crusades, showing how many of their songs were effectively pro-Crusader proaganda - and she follows the stories of troubadours such as Jaufre Rudel, who died during the Second Crusade, according to legend in Tripoli the arms of his lover.American jazz composer Wynton Marsalis joins Tom to trumpet his views cont

Half a millennium after the composer's death, Tom Service explores the enduring appeal of Josquin des Prez with the scholar Bonnie Blackburn and soprano Kate Ashby.Tom also catches-up with the 21 year-old conductor Stephanie Childress, recently appointed Assistant Conductor of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, and hears her thoughts about why conducting matters in the world right now.Professor of Musicology at Oxford University, Jonathan Cross; the Founder and CEO of Grange Park Opera, Wasfi Kani; and The Royal Opera’s Director of Opera, Oliver Mears join Tom to discuss whether opera is doing enough to reflect diversity of voice, repertoires, and composers.And, Tom speaks to the Scottish-born composer Thea Musgrave at her home in Los Angeles about compositional decisions in a time of pandemic, and Light at the end of the tunnel.With thanks to New York based Utopia Opera for their kind permission to feature music from their 2018 production of Thea Musgrave's 'The Story of Harriet Tubman', with MaKayla M. McDona

Tom Service talks to one of the most performed living composers by American orchestras - Jonathan Leshnoff. Based in Baltimore, much of his work is inspired by his Jewish faith, including Symphony no. 4 'Heichalos' – recently nominated for a Grammy award – which features a collection of string instruments recovered and rebuilt following the Holocaust - the Violins of Hope.We hear from bassoonist Linton Stephens who shares his views about how classical music can be made more inclusive.On the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, Tom hears what the work means to three violinists: the American violinist Tai Murray who has performed the work at the Proms; Thomas Gould who recorded the piece with the Sinfonietta Riga; and Jennifer Pike who recently released a recording of the original version with piano. And the author of a forthcoming biography about Vaughan Williams, Ceri Owen, also explains why she feels the shadow of the First World War hangs over the work.And Tom talks to

Tom Service talks to soprano, Claire Booth about a filmed production for Welsh National Opera of Poulenc’s La voix humaine. The monodrama was written in 1958 but the themes of isolation and lost connectivity are equally relevant today. As Radio 3 marks a decade of New Generation Thinkers, Dr Daisy Fancourt describes how music and the arts are necessary for mental and physical health. Dr Joseph Sonnabend, one of the leading doctors during the early years of the AIDS pandemic, talks to Tom about those times in New York as well has his life as a composer and his love of music by Alban Berg.Suzi Digby, Artistic Director & Founder of ORA Singers talks about what the future holds for our professional choirs and composers. And, Judith Webster, Chief Executive of Music for Youth, explains how young people are making innovative choices about how to celebrate music-making both live and online.Producer: Marie-Claire Doris

Kate Molleson talks to folk singer songwriter Sam Amidon about his new album and breathing new life into his American folk heritage. We hear from the author Anne Searcy, too, about her new book on the role ballet played in US-Soviet Cold War relations. And Kate is joined by Allegra Kent, one of the prima ballerinas of New York City Ballet who toured to the USSR at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.Aidan Moffat, vocalist and one half of the band Arab Strap, and songwriter Crispin Hunt, chair of the Ivors Academy, join Kate to discuss the economic impact of music streaming. . As this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival adapts to lockdown, we’ve a series of postcards from new music programmers across the UK who describe how COVID-19 has affected the contemporary music scene. And we speak with the folk artist Martha Wainwright, who tells us about her new music venue in Montreal.

This week Tom Service focuses on freelance musicians. He hears from the violinist Daniel Hope about the collaborative Hope@Home concert series featuring performances with young freelance musicians from his own living room in Berlin, which have been broadcast by the German/French ARTE TV network since the start of the pandemic and have reached a staggering 8-million viewers. The composer and author Julian Anderson speaks to Tom about his life in music - from his very first symphony, to an opera specially commissioned for a socially distanced world, Eight songs from isolation, as well as his new book of conversations with the scholar and critic Christopher Dingle, Dialogues on Culture, Composing and Listening. The trumpeter Chris Cotter talks to Music Matters about the ongoing economic and artistic challenges facing freelance musicians as they supplement their income by taking on other jobs. Horace Trubridge of the Musicians' Union talks to Tom about access to income support schemes, and we hear too from folk m

Tom Service asks what climate change means for classical music, and explores how cultural organisations, practitioners and institutions can respond to looming environmental challenges. We speak with the American composer, John Luther Adams, as he looks out over a freak wintry landscape of cactuses covered by snow in the Chihuahaun desert. He shares his thoughts about humanity’s relationship with the planet, his faith in future generations, and a lifetime’s work in the service of music. George Kamiya, Energy Analyst at the International Energy Agency, and the researcher and musicologist Kyle Devine, join Tom to discuss the environmental costs to how we consume music digitally. We hear, too, from the CEO and founder of Julie’s Bicycle, a charity which advises the creative industry about how to reduce its carbon footprint, and the leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Margaret Faultless, as they consider the environmental consequences of the classical music industry’s activity and what they’ve lea

Kate Molleson looks at how music venues and institutions across the world are responding creatively to the programming and performance challenges of COVID-19. Kate talks to Deborah Borda, Chief Executive of the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra has cancelled all scheduled concerts until June 2021 but its musicians have been reaching every corner of the city by performing music on the back of a truck as part of their new live concert format, NY Phil Bandwagon. Composer and vocalist Jennifer Walshe has recently been elected into Aosdána, the affiliation of creative artists in Ireland whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts. Jennifer talks to Kate about her recent project involving artificial intelligence and how she is gathering source material during these uncertain times. The prize winning novelist and music journalist, Sean Michaels shares his thoughts on how Montreal’s vibrant venues and music makers have become silent again. We hear from Chief Executive of the São Paulo Symphon

Tom Service hears from Ray Chen about the online videos he’s created during lockdown, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of followers, and Ray compares his ten million dollar Stradivarius with a $69 violin. We speak to the writer Stuart Clark about the ancient Greek theory that linked music with the stars, and his new book, Beneath the Night: How the Stars Have Shaped the History of Humankind. And, ahead of his performance as part of this autumn’s “Live from the Barbican” series, Orkney composer Erland Cooper reflects on the influence, in his music, of the islands' landscape and people. We also mark the centenary of the death of composer Max Bruch, with contributions from critic Wendy Thompson and violinists Tasmin Little, Elena Urioste and Jack Liebeck.

Kate Molleson speaks to the Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan about a new scheme to help support young artists share the stage with the world’s leading soloists, and grant young professional conductors opportunities to lead an orchestra during rehearsals. We also hear another instalment from our ‘Musicians in our time’ series, and are joined this week by guitarist Sean Shibe who shares his reflections about the impact of the pandemic on his life plans, the way he plays, and why he’s choosing alternative repertoire. The rock critic Paul Morley, who made his reputation in the 1970s and 1980s writing about Manchester punk, post-punk and New Pop, tells Kate what happened when he set out to rewrite the entire history of classical music. And Music Matters joins the sitar player Baluji Shrivastav and musicians from his Inner Vision Orchestra - the UK’s only professional ensemble of blind and visually impaired musicians – who describe how the mechanics of hearing and their experiences of making music ha

Tom Service catches up with viola player Lawrence Power to talk about his filmed series of Lockdown Commissions from major composers, and his imaginatively re-worked West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival in Buckinghamshire. The newly installed Artistic Director of English National Opera, Annilese Miskimmon, revels in the return of live opera with ENO's new drive-in production of La boheme from the car park of Alexandra Palace in North London, and reveals her vision for the company's future. To mark National Alzheimer's Day on Monday, Tom talks to Dr Sylvain Moreno, one of the world’s leading researchers on how music can positively affect the brain, and to front line workers with people suffering from dementia - Camilla Vickers and soprano Francesca Lanza from Health:Pitch, and Rebecca Seymour from Celebrating Age Wiltshire. And Music Matters' Musicians in Our Time series, following leading musicians as they face the challenges of their lives and remake the musical world over the course of the next year, continu

Radio 3’s flagship magazine programme Music Matters returns this Saturday as Tom Service surveys the developments that have occurred in the musical world during an unprecedented summer period blighted by COVID-19. Discussing the significance of local performance, the role cities play in creating cultural energy, how music is serving audiences in both the community and online, and how freelance musicians might continue to support themselves as government support schemes are wound down, Tom is joined by the ISM’s Deborah Annett, Manchester Camerata’s Bob Riley, and the economist Gerard Lyons. We visit the organist and pianist James McVinnie and London gallerist and founder of Bold Tendencies, Hannah Barry, during rehearsals for their public concert series at Peckham’s Multi-Story Car Par, to see how living musical culture is returning in an of era social distancing. And the soprano Mary Bevan tells Tom how she created opportunities for performers to make live music outside a church tower in Hornsey. He also h

Kate Molleson hosts an online panel discussion on issues relating to race and equality within the classical music industry with contributions from performers, composers, artistic leaders and programmers. The panel considers past histories and looks to the future through the lenses of education, economics and programming and deliberates on the current impact Covid-19 is having on diversity within the arts. Kate Molleson is joined by Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of the Chineke! Foundation, Chi-chi Nwanoku; experimental vocalist, movement artist and composer, Elaine Mitchener; composer and Professor of American Music at Columbia University, George E. Lewis; Chair of UK Music Diversity Taskforce, Ammo Talwar; and Head of Music at Manchester International Festival, Jane Beese; with contributions from writer, Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason; Founder and Artistic Director of plainsightSOUND, Uchenna Ngwe and composer, Adolphus Hailstork.

Tom Service talks to Stephen Johnson about his new book, 'The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910', in which he explores the meaning and context of one of the most gigantic and profound symphonies ever written. Music Matters also hears from three UK music institutions, who reveal the financial and artistic challenges they face as they start to plan for life after lockdown. Tom speaks to internet guru Jaron Lenier, too, who explains why COVID-19 is likely to produce profound changes in the way we consume music online. We hear, as well, about recent research by British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Bettina Varwig, as she describes how audiences’ auditory experience of music in 18th-Century concert halls became a more introspective, private and physical – and how the consequences of this shift during the Enlightenment are still felt to this very day. And we take a look at how new Geospatial information provided by the Ordnance Survey can be used to search the nation’s topography for spaces such as natural amphith

Major players in the classical music world congregate online and take part in a debate hosted by Tom Service. With practitioners from around the globe, this landmark programme examines how the classical music industry can rebuild and sustain itself following the Covid-19 lockdown.With contributions from violinist Nicola Benedetti, founder of the Chineke! Foundation Chi-chi Nwanoku, the managing director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York Peter Gelb, the director of music at the Southbank Centre Gillian Moore, chief executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Stephen Maddock, general manager of the Berlin Philharmonic Andrea Zietzschmann, music programme manager at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall Neil Bennison, director of music at Arts Council England Claire Mera-Nelson, composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson, director of the London Contemporary Music Festival Igor Toronyi-Lalic and chief music critic of The Times, Richard Morrison.

As composer Mark-Anthony Turnage turns 60, Kate Molleson talks to him about the influences he received from Oliver Knussen, Gunther Schuller and Hans-Werner Henze. He speaks candidly about continuing to want to compose pieces that challenge, and shares his thoughts about how Covid-19 might change the music scene over the coming years. In light of the recent death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in the USA, Kate reflects on the discourses of solidarity we’ve heard from within the music world and the wider issue of racism in classical music with composer Eleanor Alberga. Kate also asks Heather Wiebe from King's College London to review a new book, 'Aaron Copland's Hollywood Film Scores', by the musicologist Paula Musegades who argues that the composer used movies to try out his new 'American sound'. And we talk to Maggie Rodford, managing director of one of UK's busiest recording studios, about the impact of Covid-19 on the film and TV music recording industry.

As Mental Health Awareness Week draws to a close, Kate Molleson surveys the musical world's responses to mental wellbeing. Opera star Renée Fleming talks about her 'Music and Mind Live' webinar series, which explores the impact of music on human health and the brain. Kate is joined, too, by the author, musician and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin who will also feature in the webinar series. The composer Nigel Osborne introduces his X-System, which examines how the brain and body respond to music, and the Irish accordionist and psychologist Cormac Begley shares his thoughts about music and mood. Reflecting on life during lockdown, Music Matters also hears from the performance poet Michael Pedersen, the cellist Zoe Martlew, and trumpeter Martin Hurrell.Notes:* Renée Fleming's 'Music and the Mind' webinars take place on Tuesdays at 10 pm UK time, via her Facebook page. * Professor Daniel Levitin's latest publication is 'Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives' (Pengui

Tom Service talks to pianist Jonathan Biss about how Beethoven can help us all through lockdown isolation, and to lutenist Elizabeth Kenny about the far-sighted Italian Renaissance pioneer, composer, lutenist and theorist Vincenzo Galilei - father of astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Tom talks to author Adrian Wright about his new book Cheer Up! - British Musical Films, 1929-1945. And, from the Music Matters archive, another chance to hear Tom's 2018 interview with dynamic Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki.

Tom Service talks to author Oliver Craske about his new biography, which marks the 100th anniversary of one of the 20th century's most influential musicians, Ravi Shankar. Composer, Erkki Sven Tuur turned 60 last year. He speaks to Tom, from his home on an island in the Baltic Sea, about his Ninth Symphony and how his orchestral piece Sow the Wind is especially relevant during these times. We continue to mine the Music Matters archive and there is another chance to hear Angela Hewitt talk about Beethoven and Bach. And as lockdown continues to impact artists the world over, Tom talks to violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, percussionist Claire Edwardes, and the composer Kamala Sankaram whose new opera “All decisions will be made by consensus,” was composed especially for live online performance premieres this week.