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Radio 3's primary contemporary music programme, featuring live performances and sessions

Radio 3's primary contemporary music programme, featuring live performances and studio sessions from the best new groups, and premiering works commissioned by the BBC

Hear and Now: Frank Zappa's 200 Motels

Frank Zappa's 200 Motels

09/11/2013

BBC Radio 3 - Hear and Now, Frank Zappa's 200 Motels

Tom Service presents the UK premiere of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.

Tom Service introduces a recording of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, performed in the UK for the first time as part of the Rest is Noise festival at London's Southbank Centre.

Tom Service presents the UK premiere of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, a suite from the orchestral soundtrack to the American composer's surrealist documentary film about life on the road as a rock musician. Containing very strong language thoughout, it was banned from live performance in the UK in 1971 on grounds of obscenity, but was finally staged in London last month as part of the Rest is Noise festival, the South Bank's ongoing survey of music from the twentieth century. Tom Service is joined by author Ben Watson, who makes the case for this work as Zappa's misunderstood masterpiece.

Frank Zappa: 200 Motels

Claron McFadden, soprano
Tony Guilfoyle (Frank)
Richard Strange (Narrator, Rance)
Ian Shaw (Mark)
Brendan Reilly (Howard, Cowboy Burt)
Sophia Brous (Groupie 1, Larry the Dwarf)
Diva Zappa (Groupie 2, Lucy)
Jessica Hynes (Good Conscience)
Jay Rayner (Bad Conscience, Ginger)
Scott Thunes (Jeff)

London Voices
Southbank Sinfonia
BBC Concert Orchestra
Jurjen Hempel, conductor.

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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