Music Matters

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Music Matters: Sensory deprivation, musical revelation

26/06/2021

Sensory deprivation, musical revelation

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Sensory deprivation, musical revelation

Caroline Shaw, Franz Welser-Most and Grant Llewellyn.

Tom Service speaks to American composer Caroline Shaw, Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst, record producer and engineer Julie Mclarnon, and Welsh conductor Grant Llewellyn.

Image credit: Dayna Szyndrowski

As the American composer Caroline Shaw releases Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part - her first solo vocal album, with Sō Percussion - she talks to presenter Tom Service about her approach to music. With its roots in childhood, playing violin to her father's medical patients nearing the end of their lives, to the music of the past she loves, Shaw's generous attitude as a composer and collaborator results in music which is to be shared, and which resonates with our life experiences.

From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World is the Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst's autobiography, recently translated into English by Christine Shuttleworth. In it, he writes about the car accident which changed his life as an 18-year old, pointing him towards conducting and a life-long search for silence and meaning in his musical life. From his home on the shores of the Attersee, Welser-Möst reflects on the lasting impact of this experience, on the self-described failure of his years with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and his successful tenure with the Cleveland Orchestra, and explains his criticisms of today's classical music industry.

The Ireland-based analogue record producer and engineer Julie Mclarnon responds to one of the chapters in Welser-Möst's book, In Praise of Boredom, having recently made a documentary The Psychology of Analogue, exploring how reductions in data and visual stimuli can lead to improved creativity in music.

And the Welsh conductor Grant Llewellyn, who experienced a stroke last year which threatened to end his career in music. He talks to Tom about his road to recovery, how his physical limitations have led to a chamber-style approach to music-making with his Orchestre National de Bretagne, and the hope he finds in Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

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