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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Between the Ears

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Innovative and thought-provoking features on a wide variety of subjects

Innovative and thought-provoking features that make adventurous use of sound and explore a wide variety of subjects. Made by leading radio producers.

Between the Ears: On the Trail of the Snail

On the Trail of the Snail

11/12/2010

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, On the Trail of the Snail

Five radio producers give their responses in sound to Henri Matisse's collage The Snail.

Five radio producers from around the world contribute their personal responses in sound to Henri Matisse's The Snail, hanging in Tate Modern in London.

Five celebrated radio producers from around the world contribute their personal responses in sound to Henri Matisse's The Snail, the iconic paper cut-out collage that hangs in Tate Modern, London.

This collaborative edition of Between the Ears explores radio's capacity for re-presenting art. It evokes through sound the primary colours, elemental spiralling shape and gastropodic allusions of an image that's at once playful and melancholy. Late in his life, ill-health forced Matisse to work with a new technique, directing assistants to arrange coloured paper cut-outs on his studio wall - The Snail of 1953 is the most celebrated example of this period.

The "On the Trail of the Snail" audio collage consists of:

Chris Brookes (Canada) - "?The Snail Trail in the White House" (with reference to The Orlons 1962 hit The Wah-Watusi and Alma Thomas' homage to Matisse, Watusi)

Dinah Bird (France) - "Helix" ("The spiral is a spiritual circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free." Vladimir Nabokov)

Sherre DeLys (Australia) - 'Chromatic Composition'. (Sherre and sculptor Joan Grounds reflect on Matisse's use of colour as they walk through a north American woodland.) 

Pejk Malinovski (USA) - "A Snail is a Snail is a Snail is an Artist", featuring the voices of Gertrude Stein and biologist Ronald Chase.

Kari Hesthamar (Norway) - "Tramp" ("The first step in any trip or journey is always a footstep - the brave or curious act of putting one foot in front of the other." The Norwegian author Tomas Espedal walks - to collect stories and to survive.) 

Curated by London-based producer Alan Hall.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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