Notes On Notes Podcast

This episode is our lockdown edition. I’m interviewing opera singer Peter Brathwaite, Susanna Eastburn, Chief Executive of Sound and Music, and Chi-chi Nwanoku, Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Chineke!. We’re talking about how the pandemic has affected musicians in the UK, and how classical music might have to change as lockdown measures ease. We’re also discussing the UK government’s £1.57bn emergency fund for the arts, and how it should be spent.

Happy International Women's Day! Today we're looking at Judith Weir's choral setting of George Herbert's poem 'Vertue'. This episode is in association with Nkoda, a score-reading app available on subscription. We have a discount available for Notes on Notes listeners (£7.99/month), so if you’d like to find out more about Nkoda or sign up with our discount, then please go to our landing page on Nkoda’s website, https://www.nkoda.com/institutions/promotions/notesonnotes.

Today I'm with conductor Olivia Clarke, who has just been appointed the new Mackerras Conducting Fellow at English National Opera. We're discussing the challenges of conducting opera, and of being a woman on the podium.

Today we're exploring the music of one of my favourite composers - Rebecca Clarke! We're focusing on her Three Old English Songs for violin and voice, which feature some of the most catchy tunes known to mankind.

For our first podcast of 2020 I’m with Dr Nathan Waddell. We’re talking about how myths about Beethoven’s life influenced writers including Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Dorothy Richardson in the early twentieth century. Dr Nathan Waddell is a Senior Lecturer in Early Twentieth-Century and Modernist Literature in the Department of English Literature at the […]

Today I’m with the composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad. We’re discussing her career and approaches to composition, with a particular focus on her songs Magic Lantern Tales, and her Piano Concerto Between the Skies, the River and the Hills. Admired for her originality, fluency and professionalism, Cheryl Frances-Hoad has been composing to commission since she was fifteen. Classical tradition […]

Today we're looking at Clara Schumann's Piano Sonata in G minor, written just a year after she married Robert. She wrote two of the movements as a Christmas present for her new husband, and we delve into the history of the piece and their relationship. This episode is in association with Nkoda, a score-reading app available on subscription. We have a discount to Nkoda for Notes on Notes listeners (£7.99/month), so if you'd like to find out more about Nkoda or sign up with our discount, then please go to https://www.nkoda.com/institutions/promotions/notesonnotes.

Today I'm with Professor Doug Shadle from Vanderbilt University. We're discussing American symphonies and orchestras, and the C20th music critic Claudia Cassidy. As a public figure in the classical music industry she faced considerable sexism, and we're talking about what we can learn from her life and how we move conversations about gender forward.

This week we're reviewing a new CD featuring the piano concertos of British composers Dora Bright and Ruth Gipps. The CD is from Somm Recordings, featuring pianists Samantha Ward and Murray McLachlan performing with Charles Peebles and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

In this final introduction to world premieres at the BBC Proms, I'm talking to the composer Freya Waley-Cohen. Her work Naiad was premiered and broadcast on the 9th September, performed by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. The performance is now available via BBC Sounds.