BBC RADIO 3 - SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE APRIL – MAY 2016 MONDAY 18TH – FRIDAY 22ND APRIL Essential Classics Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 0900 - 1200 In the week leading up to the Shakespeare 400 anniversary, the guest on Radio 3’s morning programme is Adrian Lester OBE, acclaimed for his performances as Henry V and Othello at the National Theatre – winning the Evening Standard Best Actor award. He’ll talk about Shakespeare, his life as an actor and choose some fascinating music. Producer: Sarah Devonald, Somethin’Else Composer of the Week Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 1200 – 1300 William Byrd There is frustratingly little evidence that William Byrd was personally acquainted with his fellow Elizabethan, William Shakespeare. Although, a tantalising reference to “the bird of loudest lay” in Shakespeare’s sonnet, The Phoenix and the Turtle hints that they may have been more than mere contemporaries. As a Roman Catholic in Elizabethan England, William Byrd was persecuted by the state and often forced to tread a dangerous path between his personal convictions and his duty to the Queen. His musical talent and his strength of character enabled him not just to survive, but thrive. Despite his trials, he was, and continues to be, celebrated as the greatest British musician of his age. SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE LIVE 22nd – 24th April, Stratford-upon-Avon Radio 3 broadcasts live all weekend from its pop-up studio at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and at venues across the town. Actors, musicians, poets, singers and orchestras perform a huge range of songs, film scores, jazz, chamber music, choral works and world music - all inspired by Shakespeare's works. Presenters include Sean Rafferty, Ian McMillan, Suzy Klein and Sara Mohr-Pietsch. FRIDAY 22ND APRIL In Tune 16:30-18:30 BBC Radio 3 Sean Rafferty launches Radio 3’s Shakespeare anniversary weekend with a live showcase of musicians, singers and performers, including the Chelys Consort of Viols, students from the Royal Academy of Music, musicians from the current RSC production of Hamlet and the world premiere of Love Sought. Love Sought is a brand new setting of text from Shakespeare’s The Winter's Tale by Roxanna Panufnik sung by Radio 3 New Generation Artist Kathryn Rudge. Live from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The Sounds of Shakespeare 1830-1930 BBC Radio 3 Radio 3 presenter Tom Service charts the magical chemistry between Shakespeare’s language and the music it has given life to over the last 400 years - from Romeo and Juliet to The Tempest. Live from the Radio 3’s pop-up studio at The Other Place theatre. Radio 3 in Concert: Shakespeare Odes 1930 – 2130 BBC Radio 3 A spectacular commemorative concert at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, where Shakespeare was baptised and buried, with Shakespeare-inspired works from the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, performed by Ex Cathedra and City Musick, directed by Jeffrey Skidmore. For tonight’s performance the Ode has been reconstructed for the first time since the eighteenth century. Samuel West takes the part of Garrick and Sally Beamish has written the music for the missing opening and closing choruses. To end the concert, Sally Beamish and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy have collaborated on a contemporary tribute to Shakespeare, A Shakespeare Masque. Concert Interval: Shakespeare and Stratford 2020-2045 BBC Radio 3 When did Stratford and the country at large really begin to celebrate Shakespeare? Radio 3 presenter Suzy Klein is in conversation in the pop-up studio with Professors Michael Dobson and Ewan Fernie from the Shakespeare Institute to tell the story of how Stratford grew to love the memory of the man and revived his writing. Sonnets in the City Friday 22nd April: 2145-2200; 2245-2300 BBC Radio 3 Saturday 23rd April: 2130 – 2200 BBC Radio 3 Sunday 24th April: 2330-2345 BBC Radio 3 Radio 3 has commissioned five writers to re-version five of Shakespeare’s most powerful sonnets as a series of edgy, contemporary dramas set across a single night in a city – and commissioned five composers to create the music for those sonnets, to be performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. In each play the original sonnet is read by Maxine Peake. The sonnets are 29, 61, 73, 140, 154 and they will be broadcast across the Sounds of Shakespeare weekend. Writers: Tom Wells, Francesca Martinez, Lee Mattinson, Esther Wilson, Zodwa Nyoni. The composers: Tom Coult, Nina Whiteman, Aaron Parker, Chiu-Yu Chou, Daniel Kidane, The Verb 2200-2245 BBC Radio 3 Poet Ian McMillan hosts late night entertainment in the pop-up studio in Stratford with a roundtable of writers celebrating Shakespeare's linguistic fireworks. Benet Brandreth, a rhetoric coach, has written a new novel imagining Shakespeare’s lost years and Nell Lyshon imagines a fictional meeting with Spanish literary titan Cervantes, who died on the same day in 1616. Plus, actor Ben Crystal who directs Shakespeare in “original pronunciation” and poet Wendy Cope with her new poems commissioned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. World on 3 2300 – 0100 BBC Radio 3 Mary-Ann Kennedy celebrates the global influence of Shakespeare’s work. SATURDAY 23RD APRIL Breakfast 0700-0900 Martin Handley plays great music to begin a very special day for Stratford – including some early birthday tributes to WS. With guest poet Ian McMillan. Record Review 0900-1100 Andrew McGregor with a live Shakespeare-themed edition of his review programme. Italian specialist Roger Parker is in the pop-up studio to compare recordings of one of opera’s greatest re-incarnations of Shakespeare’s work- Verdi’s Falstaff. Actors Samuel West, Hugh Quarshie (a recent Othello at the RSC) and scholar Kate Kennedy join Andrew to guide us through archive recordings of the greatest Shakespearean interpreters of the last hundred years, including the likes of Sybil Thorndike, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier. Words and Music: The Power of Royalty 1100-1200 “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”. Juliet Stephenson and Tim Pigott-Smith perform readings in the pop-up studio, accompanied by centuries of music inspired by one of Shakespeare’s favourite themes: the power of royalty. Music Matters 1200-1245 Tom Service presents Radio 3’s music magazine from Stratford, looking at the role of music in Shakespeare’s plays, the intrinsic musicality of his texts, and exploring Shakespearean music from the BBC archives. Guests include composer Gary Carpenter, theatre historian Sarah Lenton, Cicely Berry the RSC’s Associate Director (voice) and David Roesner on musicality in theatre. Saturday Classics 1245-1400 “Brevity is the soul of wit” With the help of the BBC Singers, composer and pianist Richard Sisson and friends launch a playful attempt to perform music from every single Shakespeare play – in just 75 minutes! With solo performances from mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, baritone Mark Stone and pianist Ashley Wass. Live on stage at The Other Place studio theatre. Early Music Show 1415-1500 Lucie Skeaping introduces soprano Ruby Hughes and lute player Jon Nordberg in a 16th century recital specially created for today, Lute songs and Pavans in Shakespeare’s England. Live on stage at The Other Place studio theatre and includes works by John Dowland and Robert Johnson. Sound of Cinema: Shakespeare on Film 1500 - 1600 A special edition of Radio 3’s film music programme. The BBC Concert Orchestra join presenter Matthew Sweet live on stage for 60 action-packed minutes of music from Shakespeare on film. Including soundtracks from one of the great Shakespeare collaborations of the 20th century, William Walton and Laurence Olivier's Henry V. Live in front of an audience at The Levi Fox Hall, at Shakespeare’s former school King Edward VI, Stratford-upon-Avon. Jazz Record Requests: Live Broadcast 1600-1700 Alyn Shipton plays listeners' choices, including Duke Ellington’s homage to Shakespeare, Such Sweet Thunder. As a special treat, Alyn takes up his double bass to play live in Stratford with visiting American Jazz clarinettist Tom Sancton. Words and Music: Jealousy 1700-1740 "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on" Juliet Stephenson and Tim Pigott-Smith perform readings in the pop-up studio, accompanied by centuries of music inspired by one of Shakespeare’s darker themes: jealousy. Serenade to Music, by Vaughan Williams 1740-1800 “Here will we sit and let the sounds of music, creep in our ears”. The BBC Singers, conducted by James Morgan, give a live anniversary performance from Stratford’s Guild Chapel of Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, the famously beautiful setting of part of The Merchant of Venice. Opera on 3: Live from the Met 1800 - 2130 Radio 3 temporarily departs Stratford and heads to New York to join the Metropolitan Opera House’s production of Verdi’s masterful Otello, with Aleksandrs Antonenko in the title role, and Željko Lučić as Iago. Hibla Gerzmava joins the cast as Desdemona, and Adam Fischer conducts. Directed by Bartlett Sher. This is a production that the Huffington Post said: “A stark and simple yet often powerful new production of Verdi’s passionate and masterful rendering of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.” Hear and Now 2200-2400 Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Tom Service introduce adventurous 21st century musical responses to Shakespeare’s work. Matthew Herbert introduces a newly created setting of a speech from Macbeth, commissioned by the BBC for today’s anniversary. Sound artist Martin Parker and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne take music and texts from 1616 and remix them for 2016.