Robin Holloway, Fiona Shaw, Brass Band Competitions
Composer Robin Holloway talks to Tom Service as he celebrates his 70th birthday. Tom also visits Glyndebourne to meet director Fiona Shaw and explores brass band competitions.
Tom Service talks to composer Robin Holloway as he celebrates his 70th birthday. He visits Glyndebourne to meet director Fiona Shaw and explores Brass Band Competitions.
Robin Holloway is 70 today and Tom catches up with him at his home to discuss his life and music. Britten's The Rape of Lucretia was first performed at Glyndebourne in 1946 and in Britten's centenary year the opera house is revisiting the work in a new production by acclaimed director Fiona Shaw. Tom visits Glyndebourne during final rehearsals and talks to Shaw about her vision for a piece Britten called a 'chamber opera'. Last weekend the Royal Albert Hall hosted the finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain an event which for the last hundred years has had a test piece written especially for it by composers including Elgar, Holst and Ireland. Tom talks to Edward Gregson - the composer of this year's test piece about the history of composing for Brass Band and he hears from players about what competitions mean to them.
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"I don't see any point in pastiche or imitation or fakes."
Duration: 11:07
Chapters
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Fiona Shaw
Duration: 17:05
National Brass Band Championship
Duration: 12:55
Robin Holloway
Duration: 11:27
Fiona Shaw
![Fiona Shaw]()
Benjamin Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia was first performed at Glyndebourne in 1946 and in the composer’s centenary year this opera house is revisiting the work in a new production by acclaimed actress and director Fiona Shaw. Tom Service visits Glyndebourne during final rehearsals and talks to Shaw about her vision for a piece Britten called a 'chamber opera'.
More information:
BBC Radio 3 will broadcast this production on 28th December at 19:30
Celebrating 100 years since the first original brass band test piece.
![Celebrating 100 years since the first original brass band test piece.]()
Last Saturday the Royal Albert Hall hosted the finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, an event which for the last hundred years has usually had a test piece written especially for it. Over the years some of the greats of British music have composed the piece including Elgar, Holst and Ireland. Tom talks about the history of test pieces with the composer of this year’s piece Edward Gregson, conductor and presenter Frank Renton gives his views about the health of competitions and he also hears from the some of the players themselves.
More information:
Listen to the winning performance of "Of Distant Memories".
The BBC searches for its next brass star with the Young Brass Award 2014
Robin Holloway
![Robin Holloway]()
The composer Robin Holloway, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British music, turns 70 on Saturday 19th October. He has composed a huge catalogue of orchestral and chamber music, an opera on Thackeray’s Clarissa and was a professor at Cambridge University. Holloway has mined the musical past to create his musical future, his works having a kind of joyful creative borrowing from composers including Schumann, Bach, Schubert and Debussy – fragments, quotations and allusions which he has transformed into his own individual language. Tom met Robin at his London home to talk about his life in music.
More information:
Robin Holloway (Boosey & Hawkes)
Concert featuring Robin Holloway's music 26th November, Cambridge
Concert featuring Robin Holloway's music 27th November, Cambridge
Credits
Role Contributor Presenter Tom Service Interviewed Guest Fiona Shaw Interviewed Guest Robin Holloway Interviewed Guest Edward Gregson Broadcast
- Sat 19 Oct 2013 12:15BBC Radio 3
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