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Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast

Conversations about classical music and opera that bridge the gap between artist and audience.

Episodes

54: Conductor Elim Chan at the BBC Proms 2019

Give the listening audience the chance to reflect on what they’ve just heard and what it means to them, instead of resorting to hype, sycophancy, or post-performance reviews

53: Opinion - Stop Banging On

Give the listening audience the chance to reflect on what they’ve just heard and what it means to them, instead of resorting to hype, sycophancy, or post-performance reviews

52: Solomon's Knot

Ahead of their BBC Proms debut, members of Solomon’s Knot take a break from rehearsals at Trinity Church in Prince Consort Road, London to discuss their craft, explore musical rhetoric in performance, and the challenges of singing from memory. 

51: Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra

A new training orchestra for conservatoire musicians from Russia and the UK starts rehearsing for a month of concerts in September 2019. Artistic Director Jan Latham Koenig explains the thinking behind the bi-lateral project, and what he discovered during auditions for the orchestra.

50: Verbier Festival Founder and Director Martin Engstroem

What marked Martin out for leadership? What mindset helped him be successful. The former VP of Deutsche Grammophon – Artists and Repertoire – shared insights into how the record industry works, and why he moved from artist management to artistic directorship. 

49: Violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky

Russian violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky discusses the impact of Yehudi Menuhin, the Soviet music education system, and how we uses nerves in performance, in this exclusive podcast recorded at the Verbier Festival on Sunday 28 July 2019. 

48: Pianist Nicolas Hodges discusses Messiaen's Des Canyons aux étoiles

Nicolas Hodges appears at the BBC Proms 2019 in a performance of Messiaen’s Des Canyon aux étoiles. Here he discusses the different ways birdsong sounds across the world, how eight weeks when he was a teenager made contemporary music inescapable, and what happens in the moment between the final note of a piece of music and the applause beginning. 

47: Clarinettist Mark van de Wiel

Principal clarinettist of the Philharmonia Mark van de Wiel discuss the Mozart and Phibbs recordings just released Signum, plus explain his development as a musician with teachers Dame Thea King and Colin Bradbury. Buy via the Signum website >> https://signumrecords.com/product/phibbs-and-mozart/SIGCD578/

46: Cellist Matthew Barley discusses The Protecting Veil, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and handling hypermobility

Matthew Barley’s recording of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil was released on the Signum label in June 2019. It’s available via Spotify. 

45: BBC Proms Commissioning Editor Jan Younghusband

A new Proms season brings a sort of new approach to presenting classical music on BBC TV. Jan Younghusband discusses her influences and her motivations, and shows how she handles audience feedback. 

44: Tenor Toby Spence discusses Beethoven and the rise of amateurism in music performance

43: Composer Alexey Shor

Maths prodigy and now composer. Alexey Shor is the composer in residence at the Malta International Festival. In this podcast he discusses why he writes and how he writes, and challenges a whole load of assumptions about the classical music world as he does so. Read the accompanying blog post on the Thoroughly Good Blog

42: Andrew Nethsingha from the Choir of St Johns College of Cambridge

Director of Music at St Johns College of Cambridge discusses his work at St Johns College Cambridge, the educational impact of Cambridge music making, and the choir’s new release on Signum Records, Locus Iste

41: Composer Jonathan Dove at Salisbury Arts Festival

Jon Jacob speaks to composer Jonathan Dove at the Salisbury International Arts Festival about the compositional language he uses in some of his works. An album of orchestral music by Jonathan with the BBC Philharmonic and Timothy Redmond is available on Spotify

"Nice relaxed and well informed interviewer, top guests and informative podcast, good production values."