http://southerlyjournal.com.au/2013/05/21/islands-and-archipelagos/#more-4319

It focuses on the writer Randolph Stow, who was born in Western Australia and emigrated to England in the 1960s, basing himself first in Suffolk and finally in Harwich. He has distinguished musical connections, writing the libretti for two works by Peter Maxwell Davies: Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, as well as using music extensively in his writings. This article looks at ‘islands’ in Stow’s life and output, linking his preoccupation to that of composer Peter Sculthorpe, born in Tasmania. Stow’s places range from the Scottish island of Handa to Malta, from the Trobriand islands to an isolated mission station in the Kimberleys.

The first episode is entitled ’Genesis and Genius’ and can be seen on Friday 24 May at 8pm on BBC4. Episode two, ‘Beethoven and Beyond’ follows on Friday 31 May.

The series, which won several awards, was produced as a collaboration between BBC4 television, the Open University Music Department (with Robert Samuels as lead academic), BBC Orchestras, Radio 3, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra Learning division. Essays on the associated website were contributed by OU music department members Robert Samuels, Fiona Richards, and Ben Winters.

His talk is called ’The Music of Total War’, and looks at three works: Michael Tippett’s oratorio, A Child of Our Time; Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem; and Dimitri Shostakovich’s Babi Yar Symphony.

More details can be found on the Southbank centre’s website, and on the OU’s OpenLearn pages.

The Buon Tempi Consort will be conducted by PhD student Ben Byram-Wigfield, who is carrying out his research on Lotti’s sacred music. The work shows off the famous polychoral tradition employed at the Basilica San Marco in Venice.

Take this opportunity to catch a rarity! Tickets are £10 and available on the door.

Catherine will be giving a pre-concert talk on Sunday at 18.15 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, prior to the BBC Concert Orchestra’s performance. She’ll be talking about the blues and how they influenced the music of William Grant Still and Duke Ellington, and will be joined by musicians from Dune Music and Tomorrow’s Warriors.

More details can be found here.

Fiona Richards is giving a paper on the musical connections between Bridge, his pupil Benjamin Britten and the conductor Boyd Neel. A GP and keen amateur musician, Neel formed a new string ensemble in 1933. The Boyd Neel Orchestra went on to play an important role in the creation and performance of music for string orchestra, commissioning pieces by many British composers, including Bliss, Britten, Howells, Ireland, Vaughan Williams and Walton. In 1937 Britten wrote his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, which was premiered in Salzburg on 27 August. In 1939 the orchestra took the Variations to Portugal, performing them in Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra, where a circus was to appear later, with all the animals lined up at the back of the stage listening to the concert! For the orchestra’s 10^th anniversary Britten produced a Prelude and Fugue with one part for each of the eighteen players. In 1947 the orchestra toured Australia and new Zealand, – quite an undertaking at that time. It took 9 days to fly to Sydney via San Francisco with a number of changes: Dublin-Shannon-Gander, Newfoundland-New York-Los Angeles-San Francisco-Honolulu-Canton Island-Fiji-Sydney. When Neel was invited to be a guest on Desert Island Discs in 1963 he chose as one of his eight records the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. There are thus many different connections between these three musicians.

Open University students can hear some relevant works by logging into these links on the Naxos site:

Britten Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and Prelude and Fugue

http://open.naxosmusiclibrary.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/catalogue/item.asp?cid=CHAN6592

Boyd Neel orchestra playing Handel Concerti Grossi

http://open.naxosmusiclibrary.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/catalogue/item.asp?cid=9.80594-96

Bridge Idylls, on which Britten based his Variations

http://open.naxosmusiclibrary.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/catalogue/item.asp?cid=8.553718

The documentary is repeated on Tuesday 19th February on BBC2 at 11:20pm and available until Wednesday 27th February here.

The series features a number of newly-recorded interviews with composers – including Boulez, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, Pärt, Reich, Glass, Adams, Benjamin, and Tavener – and also discusses music by Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Varèse, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Nono, Xenakis, Ligeti, Cage, and Feldman (among others). Commentators include Erik Levi, Marina Frolova-Walker, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Tom Service.

It’s well worth a look, and more details can be found here….