BBC RADIO 3 CELEBRATES THE RETURN OF LIVE MUSIC TO ONE OF THE UK’S MOST ICONIC ARTS CENTRES WITH A TWO-WEEK RESIDENCY AT LONDON’S SOUTHBANK CENTRE
· BBC Radio 3 to broadcast 10 classical music concerts live from the Royal Festival Hall
· Live broadcasts to include: Chineke! Orchestra with soloist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason; Tasmin Little in her final concert at London’s Southbank Centre; a Radio 3 New Generation Artists Showcase featuring pianist Alexander Gadjiev and guitarist Rob Luft; the London Philharmonic Orchestra led by Daniele Rustioni in a programme of music by Chevalier de Saint Georges and Beethoven; Philharmonia Orchestra with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen and Santtu-Matias Rouvali; Roderick Williams directing the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and the London Sinfonietta celebrating James Dillon at 70;
· Music content to be available on BBC Sounds after live broadcast
· A programme of speech and literature events complementing the live music broadcasts.
BBC Radio 3 celebrates the return of live music to London’s Southbank Centre – one of the country’s most iconic arts organisations – with a two-week residency featuring broadcasts of over 16 events – including 10 live concerts from an empty Royal Festival Hall and a complementing series of speech and literature programmes.
The culmination of Southbank Centre’s wider Inside Out digital season, the BBC Radio 3 Residency marks a further stepping stone in the station’s commitment to bringing live music to audiences at home at the time of the pandemic, broadcasting live music to listeners while performers are on stage in empty venues in accordance to government guidelines.
Alan Davey, Controller BBC Radio 3 and classical music says: “It is incredibly exciting to be able to celebrate and broadcast the return of live music to Southbank Centre, at such a delicate moment – when there is so much uncertainty about the future of live performances in this country and beyond. We and Souhtbank Centre have a long tradition of making the best music available to the widest possible audience, and we are proud to provide a vital link between audiences listening from home to this amazing programme of music, making sure that the special bond between performers and listeners lives on despite the necessary safety measure and guidelines we all work in.”
Gillian Moore, CBE Director of Music and Performing Arts, Southbank Centre says: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome back BBC Radio 3 to the Southbank Centre. Joining us for two weeks as part of Inside Out, this residency continues our lasting partnership with BBC Radio 3 as they broadcast live from the beating heart of our iconic venues – the Royal Festival Hall – this Autumn. As Tasmin Little gives her last ever recital at a major UK venue, we’ll hear nightly concerts from our family of orchestras, accompanied by a challenging literature series featuring some of our generation’s leading thinkers. We are certain this will be a moment of togetherness for audiences across the UK, as we mark our re-opening this Autumn after so many months of closure.”
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Monday 19 October
Radio 3 In Concert: Black Legacies: Chineke! Orchestra with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason at Royal Festival Hall
19:30 – 22:00
Chineke! Orchestra performs contemporary and classical works, conducted by Kevin John Edusei, in a live broadcast from the Royal Festival Hall, presented by Georgia Mann.
London-born Samuel Coleridge-Taylor often made reference to his Sierra Leonean ancestry in his music. His African Suite imagines the energy and vitality of the continent he dreamed of visiting, using the vocabulary of his European classical training.
As the first African-American woman to have her work performed by a major American orchestra, Florence B. Price enjoyed widespread acclaim during her heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. The Piano Concerto in One Movement is a new edition of the composer’s original 1934 orchestration. Young pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason makes her debut solo performance with Chineke!.
Also part of the programme is the world premiere of James B.Wilson’s latest commission, a collaboration with poet Yomi Sode. The work is inspired by a seminal moment in the recent Black Lives Matter protests in the UK.
Beethoven’s celebrated Symphony No. 5 opens with the ominous notes of ‘fate knocking at the door’, marking Chineke!’s final nod to the composer in his 250th anniversary year.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: African Suite
James B Wilson/Yomi Sode: New Work (World Premiere)
Florence B. Price: Piano Concerto in One Movement
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Jeneba Kanneh-Mason piano
Chineke! Orchestra
Kevin John Edusei conductor
Music Matters
22:00 – 22:45
Live from Southbank Centre, Tom Service presents artists appearing across the two-week residency, including members of Chineke! straight from performing the opening concert.
Tuesday 20 October
Radio 3 in Concert: Roderick Williams and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
19:30 – 22:00
Introduced by Martin Handley, baritone Roderick Williams directs the OAE and sings sacred solo cantatas by Telemann and JS Bach. After the interval, he joins soprano Rowan Pierce for Handel’s Apollo e Dafne. In this poignant and seductive setting of the tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, passion and desire are succeeded by regret and penitence as Daphne fights off Apollo’s insatiable lust and finds escape by transforming herself into a laurel tree, its branches forever watered by Apollo’s remorseful tears.
Introduced by Martin Handley.
Telemann: Die Stille Nacht (Der am Ölberg zagende Jesus), TWV.1:364
JS Bach: Cantata No. 82 BWV.82 (Ich habe genug)
8.40pm
Interval
9.10pm
Handel: Apollo e Dafne (Italian cantata No.16 HWV.122)
Rowan Pierce (soprano)
Roderick Williams (baritone and director)
Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment
Free Thinking: Seances
22:00 – 22:45
The author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Kate Summerscale, talks to Matthew Sweet about her discovery of a dossier of interviews about a poltergeist “terrorising” Alma Fielding which made headlines in the 1938 Sunday Pictorial newspaper. 30 artists interested in seances and spirituality are on show in an exhibition co-curated by Simon Grant and the Drawing Room Gallery in partnership with the Southbank Centre Hayward Gallery Touring programme. Plus we return to a radio experiment in telepathy and a 1920s on air seance with psychologist Richard Wiseman.
Wednesday 21 October
Radio 3 in Concert: Changing Times: Vivaldi, Schubert, Larcher & Reger
19:30 – 22:00
Thierry Fischer conducts the LPO in a programme of music from Europe spanning three centuries. They begin in the splendour of Vivaldi’s Venice, before moving to Austria in 1814, when Europe enjoyed a fragile peace, and the teenage Schubert set to work on his joyful Second Symphony. A century later in 1914, Europe stood on the brink again, and the German composer Max Reger looked back to Mozart for inspiration. Most recently, a century on from Reger, the contemporary Austrian composer Thomas Larcher turned to a myth of renewal in his 2014 cello concerto ‘Ourobouros’ – the ancient image of a snake eating its own tail as symbol of infinity. Martin Handley presents.
Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in B flat, RV383a
Schubert: Symphony No 2
Larcher: Ourobouros for cello and chamber ensemble
Reger: Variations & Fugue on a theme by Mozart, Op 132
Pieter Schoeman (violin)
Kristina Blaumane (cello)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Thierry Fischer (conductor)
Free Thinking: 2020 Polari Prize winners
22:00 – 22:45
Sunil Gupta says his photographs ask what does it mean to be a gay Indian man? Zanele Mulholi documents and celebrates the lives of South Africa’s black lesbian, gay, trans, queer and intersex communities. Shahidha Bari looks at their work and talks to the prize winners of the 2020 Polari Prize and to Paul Burston, founder of the salon which usually takes place at London’s Southbank centre.
Radio 3 In Concert: Tasmin Little bids farewell to the Southbank Centre
19:30 – 22:00
As part her long-delayed final season before retiring from the concert stage Tasmin Little, one of Britain’s best-loved violinists, is joined by four of her favourite piano partners in a wide-ranging and intriguing programme – introduced by Andrew McGregor – where the familiar rubs shoulders with the lesser known..
Brahms: Scherzo (from Sonata (F.A.E.)) (Piers Lane)
Clara Schumann: 3 Romances, Op.22 (Martin Roscoe)
Lili Boulanger: Nocturne (Piers Lane)
Brahms: Sonata no. 3 in D minor, Op.108 (Andrey Gugnin)
Interval
Roxanna Panufnik: Hora Bessarabia
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Demande et Réponse (from Petite suite de concert, Op.77) (Piers Lane)
Amy Beach: Romance, Op.23 (Martin Roscoe)
Amy Beach: Sonata in A minor, Op.34 (John Lenehan)
Tasmin Little (violin)
Andrey Gugnin, Piers Lane, John Lenehan and Martin Roscoe (piano)
Free Thinking: The writing of Aimé Césaire
22:00 – 22:45
Aimé Césaire’s stinging critique of European colonial racism and hypocrisy Discours sur le colonialisme was published in 1955. How does it resonate today?
A founder of the négritude movement, Aimé Césaire (26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) also wrote poetry and a biography of Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture. Sudhir Hazareesingh has just published his own biography of Toussaint. He joins New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza, who teaches post-colonial literature at the University of Oxford, Kehinde Andrews author of Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century , and poet André Naffis-Sahely for a discussion about the influence of Césaire’s writing hosted by Rana Mitter.
Friday 23 October
Radio 3 In Concert: Beethoven’s Four – a concerto and symphony
19:30 – 22:00
One of Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras, the London Philharmonic Orchestra leaps into action with a fascinating rarity by the dashing Chevalier de Saint-Georges, violinist, composer and champion swordsman. And in a daring sleight of hand, Beethoven asks the pianist to steal in before the orchestra in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4. The soloist Nicolas Namarodze promises to bring his poetic touch to that and also to the haunting slow movement, likened to Orpheus’s journey to the Underworld. Also on the bill, Daniele Rustoni conducts a Beethoven symphony which is unjustly overlooked and favourite soprano, Sophie Bevan sings of the pains of betrayal in love. Presented by Martin Handley.
Chevalier de Saint-George: Overture L’amant anonyme
Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 4 in G major, Op.58
Beethoven: Ah! Perfido, Op. 65
Beethoven: Symphony no. 4 in B flat Op. 60
Nicolas Namoradze (piano)
Sophie Bevan (soprano)
Daniele Rustioni (conductor)
The Verb
22:00 – 22:45
Ian McMillan presents a Southbank Centre inspired edition of The Verb, exploring the poetry of brutalist concrete walls, the walls that exist in poems, and the good walls that make memorable performances happen. Guests include poets Joelle Taylor and Chris McCabe.
Saturday 24 October
Music Matters
11.45 – 12.30 (repeated on Monday 26 October)
From Southbank to South America, in this episode of Music Matters, presented by Kate Molleson during the second week of BBC Radio 3’s Residence at Southbank Centre, we explore how similar music venues and institutions across the world are responding creatively to the programming and performance challenges posed by COVID-19.
Monday 26 October
Radio 3 in Concert: Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts the Philharmonia in an all-American programme
19:30 – 22:00
Although Santtu-Matias Rouvali does not take over from fellow Finn and long-time Philharmonia Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen until next season, he has already begun to make his mark as an original programmer – and performer – with his new orchestra.
Introduced by Martin Handley, tonight’s all-American programme is bookended by two classic scores. In Appalachian Spring, Copland defined the sound of an idealised mid-century America, with broad, singable tunes, one famously taken from directly a Shaker source; Stravinsky’s lively and engaging Dumbarton Oaks (commissioned by a wealthy Washington couple as an expensive wedding anniversary present to themselves) takes JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos as its model. Less well known is African American composer Florence Price’s Dances in the Canebrakes, which conjures up the Deep South of her childhood. And Rouvali steps off the podium to join four members of the Philharmonia’s percussion section for Steve Reich’s 1973 Music for Pieces of Wood, a compelling and mesmerising tour de force of shifting rhythms and sophisticated simplicity.
Tuesday 27 October
Radio 3 in Concert: Alexander Gadjiev and Rob Luft
19:30 – 22:00
Live from the Royal Festival Hall: a Radio 3 New Generation Artists Showcase.
Alexander Gadjiev brings his brand of thoughtful pianism to Southbank Centre’s Inside Out season with a programme which explores the relationships between Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt.
After an extended interval, the jazz guitarist Rob Luft and his Quartet are joined by Swiss-Albanian singer Alina Duni for a late set.
The Interval feature is a recording made in the BBC studios of current New Generation Artist baritone James Newby singing Finzi’s Earth and Air and Rain, setting to music ten poems by Thomas Hardy.
Free Thinking: City Life, estate living and lockdown
22:00 – 22:45
Matthew Sweet hosts a debate focusing on how the pandemic has changed this and what is the future for cities like London, with a particular attention to how we use our streets. Joining the discussion are: Caleb Femi – 2016 young people’s poetry laureate for London, whose collection of poetry and photographs of the lives of young black men in Peckham, titled Poor, is published in November 2020; University of Exeter Drama lecturer Katie Beswick – author of Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage; and Julia King – Research Fellow at LSE Cities looking at “Streets for All”.
Wednesday 28 October
Radio 3 in Concert: Yet unheard
19:30 – 22:00
Andrew McGregor presents the London Sinfonietta’s opening concert for the new season, with a programme of music by established and emerging black composers, co-curated by leading composer and new music thinker George Lewis.
Partly inspired by the seismic changes in society over the summer, this varied and powerful programme addresses a range of under-represented points of view: Hannah Kendall’s unsettling Verdala explores the experience of the British West Indian Regiment in the First World War in her typically uncompromising and richly textured style, while Courtney Bryan’s haunting and emotionally fraught Yet Unheard sets the voice of Sandra Bland, a young African-American woman found hanged in her jail cell three days after her arrest during a 2015 traffic stop in Texas. The programme opens with exciting music by Cuban composer Tania León, while George Lewis’ energetic Assemblage provides a taste of what’s to come in his upcoming commission for the London Sinfonietta.
Tania León: Toque
Hannah Kendall: Verdala
George Lewis: Assemblage
Courtney Bryan: Yet Unheard
London Sinfonietta
Vimbayi Kasiboni, conductor
Producer: Tony Sellors
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Free Thinking: Individualism and Community
22:00 – 22:45
Anne McElvoy explores the intersections between community and the individual, care and conscience.
With Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romneny Garrett, authors of The Upswing, arguing for a return to the communitarian American values of the New Deal-era1920s; Madeleine Bunting, whose book Labours of Love looks at the crisis of care in the UK today; New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel, whose work traces the history of the idea of conscience from the 18th century Enlightenment to today; and novelist Jenny Erpenbeck, whose new work is a collection of essays called Not A Novel.
Thursday 29 October
Radio 3 In Concert: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Britten and Ravel
19:30 – 22:00
Introduced by Ian Skelly, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the first concert of his final season as the Philharmonia’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser. In a typically enticing programme, Salonen contrasts Ravel’s refined depiction of innocent childhood and fairy tale with the darker, dreamlike world of Britten’s Les illuminations. Britten’s brilliant settings of Arthur Rimbau’s cryptic and sometimes obscure poetry are sung by American soprano Julia Bullock who tonight makes her Royal Festival Hall debut, having already performed Les illuminations with Salonen in the US to great acclaim.
Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Britten: Les illuminations
Ravel: Mother Goose (complete ballet)
Julia Bullock (soprano)
Philharmonia Ochestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor)
8.45: The National Youth Orchestra presents a Mighty River of music at the Royal Festival Hall, London.
Over lockdown, the young musicians of the NYO immersed themselves in the context and history of music by Black composers, and researched music by a wider range of compositional voices to share with others. Last week, a small group came together at the Festival Hall to play Mighty River by Errollyn Wallen, and and some of the chamber music they have learnt and loved over lockdown. The programme includes:
Amazing Grace, sung by Jermaine Jackman (arranged for 8 string players)
Deep River (arranged for 8 string players)
Jessie Montgomery: Starburst for string ensemble
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Intermezzo (arranged for brass quartet)
Mason Bynes: Hades (for double bass and piano)
Adolphus Hailstork: Flute Set – first movement (solo flute)
Florence Price: String Quartet in G major – second movement
Errollyn Wallen: Mighty River, conducted by Kwamé Ryan.
Concert recorded at the Royal Festival Hall on 24th October.
Free Thinking: Audiences
22:00 – 22:45
From online dance, pavement performances of plays back to the part played by audiences in Greek theatres and Shakespeare’s Globe – how is performance adapting in the Covid era and how are we rethinking what an audience is? Shahidha Bari hosts a discussion. Kwame Kwei-Armah directs the Young Vic, Kirsty Sedgman from the University of Bristol looks at theatre from Ancient Greece on; Lucy Weir teaches on dance at the University of Edinburgh and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and Ted Hodgkinson programmes literary events at Southbank Centre in London.
Friday 30 October
Radio 3 In Concert: BBC Concert Orchestra
19:30 – 22:00
One of Southbank Centre’s Associate Orchestras, the BBC Concert Orchestra ends BBC Radio 3’s residency at London’s Royal Festival Hall with their newly appointed Principal Guest conductor Anna-Maria Helsing. Soprano Anu Komsi joins them in Finnish and French songs, alongside Poulenc’s Sinfonietta and a piece for strings, timpani and percussion by Sebastian Fagerlund. The programme ends with a celebration of live music making in Peruvian composer Jimmy Lopez’s Fiesta.
Poulenc: Sinfonietta
Debussy arr Sakari Oramo: Pantomime; Romance
Nadia Boulanger arr Turkka Inkilä: Un grand sommeil noir
Sebastian Fagerlund: Partita
Sibelius arr Sakari Oramo: Höstkväll op.38 no.1
Heta Aho: Revanche (3rd song of the Södergran songs) World premiere
Jimmy Lopez: Fiesta