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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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45 minutes

Last on

Sat 19 Oct 2013 12:15

Chapters

  • 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'.

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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.Ìý 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.

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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.

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Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Service
Interviewed Guest Fiona Shaw
Interviewed Guest Robin Holloway
Interviewed Guest Edward Gregson

Broadcast

  • Sat 19 Oct 2013 12:15

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