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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Rachel Portman (1960-present)

Composer of the Week: Rachel Portman (1960-present): Episode 1: Rachel Portman at Oxford

Rachel Portman (1960-present)

Episode 1

Episode 1: Rachel Portman at Oxford

Rachel Portman at Oxford

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Rachel Portman (1960-present), Rachel Portman at Oxford

Rachel Portman explores her early career in discussion with Donald Macleod.

Donald Macleod joins Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman to explore her studies at Oxford and early career.

Donald Macleod in discussion with Rachel Portman explores her studies at Oxford and early career

Donald Macleod this week joins the Oscar winning film composer Rachel Portman in her studio in London, to chat about her life and music for film and the concert platform. Portman was the first female composer to win an Academy Award, an Oscar, and a Primetime Emmy Award for her various film music projects, as well as many other Academy and Golden Globe nominations. In more recent years her music for the film The Duchess has been added to the A-level music syllabus for students to study. Portman also has an interest in ecology and environmental issues. There'll be an opportunity to hear part of her choral symphony The Water Diviner's Tale, a collaboration with Owen Sheers, plus the orchestral work Endangered specially recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the week there will also be music specially recorded by the BBC Singers including Portman's Magnificat, and her Christmas Carol We Were There composed in collaboration with Michael Morpurgo.

In conversation with Donald Macleod, the composer Rachel Portman discusses her early musical influences, and the importance of her mother in encouraging her development in music. Portman was one of the first female students to study at Charterhouse, where she was first introduced to the music of Ravel, a composer she still greatly admires. After Charterhouse, Portman went on to study at Oxford which was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand she was encouraged to write atonal music, which Portman wasn't interested in at all. But through collaborating with other faculties at the university she began to compose music for projects working alongside fellow students such as Hugh Grant. After university when Portman was in her twenties, she was composing music for film, radio and the concert hall, but this still didn't bring in a regular income, so she supplemented her composing work with a number of other jobs, including waitressing, and also cooking lunches for city directors.

Main Titles (Chocolat)
Studio Orchestra
David Snell, conductor

Chocolat (excerpts)
Studio Orchestra
David Snell, conductor

Ravel
Concerto in G for piano and orchestra (Adagio assai)
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
The Cleveland Orchestra
Pierre Boulez, conductor

Portman
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis
BBC Singers
Libby Burgess, organ
Benjamin Nicholas, conductor

Main Titles: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Studio Orchestra 
David Snell, conductor

Where Angels Fear to Tread
Studio Orchestra
David Snell, conductor

In the Park (Benny and Joon)
Studio Orchestra
J.A.C. Redford, conductor

End Titles: Ethan Frome
Studio Orchestra 
David Snell, conductor

Producer Luke Whitlock.

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.

Donald Macleod joins Oscar winner Rachel Portman to chat about her compositions for film

Donald Macleod joins Oscar winning film composer Rachel Portman in her studio in London, to chat about her life and music for film and the concert platform

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Rachel Portman (1960-present)

Episode 1: Rachel Portman at Oxford

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