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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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Music Matters

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The stories that matter, the people that matter, the music that matters

Music Matters: Composers - What planet are they on?

Joan Tower and the new Planets

Composers - What planet are they on?

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Composers - What planet are they on?

Tom Service meets composer Joan Tower, and hears a new musical Planets inspired by Holst.

Tom Service talks to the composer Joan Tower, hears new musical Planets inspired by Holst, discusses Roger Scruton's new book, and profiles African-American composer Ulysses Kay.

Presented by Tom Service 

Tom talks to the Grammy-Award American composer Joan Tower, who turns 80 this month and who's crafted one of the most successful careers in music in her country, which include also the roles of piano performer and teacher. 

As Gustav Holst's masterwork reaches its first centenary, we take a look at the new Planets, a project mixing music and science creating 8 new compositions to be performed by the Ligeti String Quartet at Planetarium around the UK. Among the composers included are Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Deborah Pritchard and Samuel Bordoli.

Also, a portrait of the African-American composer Ulysses Kay as part of our new Hidden Voices series, and the critic Fiona Maddocks and academic Erik Levi join Tom to meet the philosopher and composer Roger Scruton, to discuss his latest book, 'Music as an Art' which touches on subjects such as the historical importance of Modernism and the moral dimension of music.

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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