Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast
By Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast
Thoroughly Good Classical Music PodcastAug 11, 2021
177: Ben Levy from Classics Explained
How can recontextualising classical music help build a new audience for the genre? Classics Explained YouTube producer Ben Levy explores the opportunities he's discovered using animation to tell the story of some of classics most-loved works, and some of the pushback he's received doing so.
176: Cellist Tim Posner
Tim Posner's debut album includes music by Bloch, Bruch and Dohnanyi is a case in point. The music speaks for itself (especially the rarely heard Konzertstucke by Dohnanyi) Posner's playing is full bodied, heartfelt and huggable, if you know what I mean. A Thoroughly Good highlight of 2024.
175: Monteverdi Choir's Israel in Egypt
Hailstones, frogs and sexy trills. Monteverdi Choir's director Peter Whelan joins Amy Wood and Nick Pritchard to introduce the detail and the colour in Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt.
174: On Conducting and Learning to Conduct
LPO Principal Concductor Edward Gardner, and LPO Conducting Fellows Charlotte Politi and Luis Castillo-Briceño reflecting on their roles as conductors and the process of developing their conducting presence.
173: Reflections, Recommendations & Previews
Lovely people from across the classical music industry share their reflections on the year gone by, and look forward to the year ahead. Hear thoughts and recommendations from violinist Fenella Humphreys, pianist Charles Owen, Roger Wright, London Chamber Orchestra's Jocelyn Lightfoot, Manchester Camerata's Bob Riley and Manchester Collective's Rakhi Singh.
172: Thomas Guthrie and Barokksolistene
Schubert's epic and much-revered song cycle Die Schoene Mullerin is given a folksy feel with a new recording released by Rubicon Classics featuring Barokksolistene and Thomas Guthrie (who you'll hear in this podcast episode). If you're pro-deference this one probably isn't for you, but if you're open, curious or in need of a fresh approach then come on in and make yourself comfortable. Find yourself a bale of straw and sit yourself down. It's a treat.
171: Katharine Dain and Sam Armstrong introduce 'Forget This Night'
Soprano Katharine Dain and pianist Sam Armstrong reflect on the recording of their latest ravishing duo album Forget This Night, featuring the music of Lili Boulanger, Karol Szymanowski, and Grażyna Bacewicz.
170: Ivors Award-Winners John Rutter & Tansy Davies
Hear the thoughts and reflections of two Ivor Award-Winning composers - John Rutter and Tansy Davies. Both doing the same thing - writing music. Both creating entirely different work.
At the 2023 Awards at the British Film Institute in London, Tansy Davies received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection. John Rutter received the Academy Fellowship - the highest honour the institution awards individuals. Thoroughly Good explored their purpose, what they've learned, what they advise and what they write.
169: Making Callas - Paris, 1958
Producer and Director Tom Volf explores his fascination with soprano Maria Callas and the work involved restoring her 1958 Paris debut for cinema release.
168: Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht
167: Miloš Karadaglić introduces 'Baroque'
Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić reflects on his work producing the new album 'Baroque' released October 2023.
166: Pianist Cordelia Williams introduces Cascade
165: Pianist Lucy Parham
Lucy Parham introduces selected piano works by Sergei Rachmaninoff ahead of her London Piano Festival appearance with actor Tim McInnery. For more information and tickets visit: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/london-piano-festival/
164: Composer Joseph Phibbs
Composer Joseph Phibbs returns to the podcast to introduce two new pieces premiered at Hatfield Chamber Music Festival and Wigmore Hall on 29th October and 7th October.
163: Composer Matthew Taylor
Ahead of the world premiere of Matthew Taylor's second horn concerto, Jon Jacob speaks to the composer about his work, his inspiration and the life force of Beethoven.
162: Benedetti's Call To Action
Nicola Benedetti announces the new Benedetti Baroque Sessions, a competition to participate in her Baroque orchestra, plus she pops up on Radio 4's Today to talk about what music education needs now.
161: Lost Voices with Prof Leah Broad and Violinist Fenella Humphreys
Dr Leah Broad's book Quartet tells the story of four women composers who have received little or no attention by the classical music world. The lives of Ethyl Smyth, Dorothy Howell, Rebecca Clarke and Doreen Carwithen span the 20th century and yet their music was, until a few years ago, relatively unheard of. Quartet - a substantial history of four women's compositional lives - explains why.
Following publication, Leah Broad and violinist Fenella Humphreys have joined forces with pianist Nicola Eimer, mounting a series of concerts across the country where curious audience members can hear not only the music but selected stories about the women who wrote it.
There were two things apparent from the event I attended - the first in the trio's UK tour in Harrogate earlier in the summer. The carefully selected music works in performance (so much so that the programmed movements played made me want to hear the works in their entirety) AND the briefest of introductions works wonders at focussing the listener, enhancing the experience as a result.
Leah, Fenella and I met up to discuss the book, the concerts and the impact good storytelling has on the concert experience. Lost Voices is at Snape on 9th August, and Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican on 5 November.
Works included in the Lost Voices programme:
Ethel Smyth Sonata
Doreen Carwithen Sonata
Rebecca Clarke Midsummer Moon
Rebecca Clarke Sonata Movement
Dorothy Howell Andante
Dorothy Howell The Moorings
Fenella Humphrey's next album Prism including works by Caroline Shaw, Sarah Lianne Lewis and Cheryl Frances-Hoad is released by Rubicon Classics early 2024.
160: Horn player Felix Klieser
Klieser plays the horn with his feet. This seemingly monumental achievement is of comparatively little consequence to Felix who sees himself not as a differently abled artist but as a musician who wants to make the audience happy.
At a point in time when identity, representation and opportunity are words that rightly weigh heavily in our present-day discourse and thinking, it’s Klieser’s motivation – from the age of 4 – which is counter-intuitively the more powerful message he shares. He is not someone who tells the story of achieving against the odds, but an individual who is content.
159: The Endz with Flame, Prince and the Multi-Story Orchestra
The Endz is a production mounted by school children in South London, supported by the Multi Story Orchestra, a radical performance group well-known in the industry for mounting live performances in a former multi story car park (now known as Bold Tendencies) in Peckham.
Since its Proms appearances in 2016 and 2017, the team behind the orchestra led by Kate Whitely has sought out new ways to enhance cultural experiences for the community its made its home in.
But Multi Story’s vision and method feel slightly different from convention when you hear from two of their teenage collaborators Flame and Prince talk about The Endz – a musical setting of a play a group of teenagers created themselves in response to violent crime in their neighbourhood.
The word is collaboration rather than education and outreach. Co-creation too might be a good word. And the other thing that’s important to stress is how Multi Story are helping young creative talent make the music they want to make rather than what the orchestra thinks they ought to be making.
158: Composer and vocalist Laura Bowler about her new opera 'The Blue Woman'
RPS award-winning composer and vocalist Laura Bowler talks about her newest opera 'The Blue Woman', and her climate-change inspired collaboration with Cordelia Lynn, 'Houses Slide'.
TICKETS: https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-blue-woman-by-katie-mitchell-details
Laura's new work Distance is premiered by Juliet Fraser and the Talea Ensemble at Cheltenham Festival on 10 July.
TICKETS: https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/music/whats-on/2022/distance
This interview was recorded on Monday 27 June 2022.
157: Celebrating 50 years of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme
This year Aldeburgh Festival celebrates 50 years of the artist development programme - a music-making experience rooted in the Suffolk countryside that has supported many of the world's leading musicians. In this episode, previous participants reflect on their experience attending the Britten-Pears Orchestra and courses at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies now known as the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme.
Contributors in order of appearance:
Nicholas Daniel
Jessica Mogridge
Kirsty Matheson
Caroline Clarke
Julia Lawrence
Mark Stone
Jacqui Shave
Jacqueline McCarthy
Patrick McCarthy
Amy Helen Forsdike
Chi-Yu Mo
156: Yaniewicz & Green Square Piano
Josie Dixon the great great great great grandaughter of Polish Lithuanian violinist and composer Felix Yaniewicz explains how a chance discovery unearthed a series of discoveries about the man in her family she knew only from a portrait. https://www.yaniewicz.org/piano.html
155: Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston introduces her new album Battle Cry
Helen Charlston and Toby Carr release 'Battle Cry' in May 2022 - available from 27th on Delphian records featuring songs by Barbara Strozzi, Henry Purcell, John Eccles, Claudio Monteverdi & Owain Park. To coincide with the release, both performers appear at the London Festival of Baroque at St John's Smith Square and the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. TICKETS: https://www.lfbm.org.uk/whats-on/helen-charlston-and-toby-carr
154: Composer Tom Coult introduces the new opera 'Violet'
Written in 2019 and originally premiering at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2020, Tom Coult and Alice Birch's 'Violet' tells the 24-day story of a village discovering the gradual loss of time. Recorded at rehearsals in the Jerwood Space in London in May 2022. 'Violet' opens the 2022 Aldeburgh Festival on 3 June. 🎫 https://brittenpearsarts.org/events/violet
153: Composer Oliver Davis
Released on Friday 6 May, 'Air' features a collection composer Oliver Davis' characteristically uplifting writing performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Kerensa Peacock, and Grace Davidson. Jon Jacob speaks to Davis about his dyslexia, his compositional influences, and his commercial writing experience. This podcast was recorded in March 2022 at the Southbank Centre.
152: Pianist James Lisney
Podcast 152 features pianist James Lisney ahead of his concert appearances at the 1901 Arts Club in London from 25 April and later on 12 May at Stoller Hall at Chetham's School of Music. You'll also hear music in full (if you're logged into Spotify) by Britten paraphrased by Ronald Stevenson, plus piano music by Haydn and Scriabin.
151: The Opera Story's 'Beauty and the Seven Beasts'
"Beauty and the Seven Beasts is possibly the most incredible but also the most challenging Opera Story project so far." Opera Story Hamish McKay, soprano Katherine Aitken, Dan de Sousa, and conductor Berrek Dyer talk about this new work combining the librettos and music of eight composers in one chamber opera staged at Brixton Jamm, 6-14 April 2022.
150: Violinist James Ehnes
On the day James Ehnes was meant to be playing Berg's Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, we meet on Zoom to discuss intonation, Walton, and being a tourist in London.
149 Southbank Director of Music Gillian Moore
How did Gillian Moore's musical upbringing shape her views about the relevance of music in the lives of everyone today? Ahead of her appearance a the Association of British Orchestras conference in Glasgow in February 2022, she reflects on her own experiences and offers some thoughts on what we need to do next to secure music in the lives of future generations.
148: Baritone Benjamin Appl on Winterreise
Baritone Benjamin Appl prepared for his first ever performance of Schubert epic song cycle Winterreise by learning the work on a four-hour car journey back in 2010. Twelve years later he's recorded it with pianist James Baillieu both as an album and in a documentary made by John Bridcut. Baillieu and Appl perform live at Wigmore Hall on 18th February 2022.
147: Ivors Composer Awards 2021
Jon Jacob speaks to a selection of Ivors Composer Award Winners from 2021 backstage at the ceremony in the British Museum.
146: Clarinettist Barnaby Robson
Clarinettist Barnaby Robson discusses his latest release on Orchid Classics.
145: Royal Overseas League Gold Medal 2021 Preview
Hear participants Ryan Corbett, Milly Forrest, Mathias Balzart, David Zucchi and members of the Echea String Quartet, plus artistic director Geoff Parkin discuss the importance of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition.
The Gold Medal 2021 will be staged at the Royal Overseas League in London on Wednesday 24 November. Watch live on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpkkTQnwNHGi7Jj_SK6x20g.
144: Director Daisy Evans and conductor Stephen Higgins
Theatre of Sound director Daisy Evans and conductor Stephen Higgins are currently mid-way through a run of a new of Bartók’s only opera Bluebeard's Castle. Their work reimagines the piece as a love story between a long-married couple – Duke Bluebeard and Judith – both coming to terms with living with dementia. The production is staged at Stone Nest – a stunning former Welsh chapel in the heart of London’s West End – and runs until 14 November with singers soprano Susan Bullock, bass-baritone Gerald Finley, baritone Michael Mayes and soprano Gweneth Ann Rand sharing the principal roles of Duke Bluebeard and Judith. Tickets via the Theatre of Sound website.
143: Composer Electra Perivolaris
Composer Electra Perivolaris talks about her collaboration with a Devonshire couple living with dementia, capturing their musical memories and reworking them in a brand new chamber opera, performed on Saturday 6 and 13 November 2021. Tickets via the Theatre of Sound website : https://www.tickettailor.com/events/theatreofsound/576577
142: English Concert Artistic Director Harry Bicket
English Concert artistic director Harry Bicket talks about Handel's Samson, the opera Alcina. Bicket also explains the three things others find annoying about him. Lateness is one of them. What are the other three?
142: Recent Discoveries (Oct 2021)
141: Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov
140: Tenor Nicky Spence and Help Musicians UK CEO James Ainscough
139: Tom Poster and Elena Urioste's Jukebox Album
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138: Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage
137: Horn player Ben Goldscheider
136: Grace Davidson & Christian Forshaw
135: Odaline de la Martinez
134: Violinist Gil Shaham
133: Clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer
132: Paul and Barney Smith from VOCES8 and Live from London
It would be easy to tell that story starting with when the pandemic hit. But, like a lot of organisations who have created success when live music was impacted, Live from London's roots going further back. As you'll hear from brothers Barney and Paul Smith who run VOCES8 and set up Live from London. Five years of digital audience development is what was necessary, also building digital content where visiting artists are partners in a creative project rather than guests of an organisation. The distinction is important, as you'll hear.
Discover more on the Live from London website.